LuLu's Bizarre Adventure
by generallandmine
Summary: (AU, OCs, HS, JoJo-inspired abilities) Everyone has a small quirk they enjoy, be it origami, video games, or even yo-yo's. Attachments to such things are part of what makes us human. However, one day, Lucy, Tabitha, and Aminah's high school is visited by a shady businessman who plays some music for them. All of a sudden, their attachments have become much more than just hobbies...
1. Chapter 1 - Lucy, Tabitha, and Aminah

Chapter 1

Normally, seeing a seventeen year old girl casually walking down the street would not cause much of a stir. However, in the case of Lucy Lutzmann, often called LuLu by her peers, it was a peculiar sight to behold. Her gait was unlike others in her grade, and her stance, which pushed her hips forward and her shoulders back in a slack-like manner, surrounded her with the aura of a person who cared about truly nothing in this world.

Her demeanor was also supported by her choice of wear. A loose tank top that revealed her midriff and bellybutton, alongside a pair of baggy sweatpants that looked like they would be incredibly comfortable even for the most voluptuous of women.

She was slender and of average height, yet had a sizeable bust and rather wide hips with legs that appeared powerful enough to put dents in the sturdiest of tanks. Her face bore the look of fatigue, yet her eyes were glued to the sidewalk ahead. Her hair was styled in an unorthodox manner involving a ponytail off the left side of her head with long bangs off to the right, a contrast to her offhandedly selected attire.

In her hand was an object of interest; for someone who most certainly looked her age, its presence would seem to suggest otherwise. It was red with a simplistic design, a mere yellow star on a white background, that when spinning gave the illusion of two concentric circles. Its bearing was almost completely silent and its string woven to perfection, its appearance seemed to be un-indicative of its balance and weight.

The yoyo, given to Lucy as a present from her late grandfather, was apparently constructed from exotic materials such as tungsten, osmium, and traces of tin, many years ago by a prolific toy designer with a particular passion for the spinning objects. She treasured the gift dearly, rarely leaving home without it, and taking every opportunity to enjoy using it, it goes without saying that LuLu had a very real attachment to it.

The reason she was walking down the street in comfortable clothing is simple, she was heading to school. Today was a day of particular importance, it marked the beginning of her second semester of senior year, and was the beginning of the end for her life as a high school girl. She had already applied to the universities she deemed worthy (and within her, or rather her parents', budgets), but was honestly still unsure as to what she wanted to do. Torn between bioengineering and dentistry, she centered her courses around biology and chemistry, with a touch of math.

After undoing her yoyo and placing it in her bag, she had arrived within view of the large, perfectly symmetrical and as a result stunningly mundane building that was her school. After a brief, reflective stare at it, she heard a familiar voice coming from her right, far closer to her ear than she was prepared for.

"Hey LuLu" it whispered, startling Lucy and causing her to jump away reflexively.

Judging from the raspy tone in the female-sounding voice, Lulu quickly came to the conclusion that its source was her friend of three years, Tabitha Gonzales. She was particularly devoted to computers and videogames, having built herself a computer at the tender age of 13, which reportedly still worked, despite the many "internet glitches" that plagued the skype calls she had with her friends.

As soon as lucy noticed that she had lost her balance and would be incapable of stabilizing herself before a painful encounter between her butt and the concrete floor, she felt two hand shaped objects press against her upper back, allowing her to regain her composure.

"Good morning, LuLu, are you alright?"

The soft and genuine voice just behind her head showed compassion to her that rivaled that which her family members harbored, taking this into consideration, it can belong to no one other than LuLu's friend, also of three years, Aminah Johansen. Her little quirk was origami, the Japanese art form of paper folding. Despite being very proficient and creative with paper, she was very shy of her abilities, and often chose not to display them, even when an opportunity presented itself.

"Guys, it's seven in the morning, can we not?" Lucy asked, finally recovering.

"Oh, come on, now, we always do this! How could we not when you fall for it every time?" Tabitha giggled, to which Aminah responded with a slightly nervous 'ahaha'

"That's right, guys! We're on our final semester of high school, soon we'll be off to our new lives" Aminah changed the subject, allowing Lucy to return to her feet.

"Easy for you to say, you've already been accepted into a top tier university!" Lucy congratulated her.

"I heard that there was a big-headed scientist coming to visit the senior class to talk about some science things, any idea what that's about?" Tabitha clearly didn't care about the previous conversation topic, likely because she had yet to apply to any universities out of indecisiveness despite the rapidly approaching deadlines.

"Supposedly there's gonna be some showcase for an experimental device, it's supposed to make us smarter or something" Lucy recalled

"How would that even work?" Aminah looked up to think

"Something, something, brainwaves, blah blah blah." Tabitha dismissed the idea casually, "How are sound waves supposed to make us smarter, is he gonna play Mozart or something?"

"At least it means I don't have to go to Spanish class" Lucy quietly cheered.

Interrupting their conversation, the five minute bell rang and the girls scuttled off to their joint homeroom. When LuLu, Tabitha and Aminah at their usual desks, they noticed a group of significantly more socially capable girls chatting with a boy, who between his fingers held what appeared to be a disk. After a second glance, Lucy discovered that it was a revolver. Not the pistol, it would be of great concern if a teenager brought a gigantic revolver to school and chose to show it off to a bunch of horny teenage girls as some perverse metaphor for the size of his penis, the revolver in question was less harmful in theory but more so in practice.

The object in his hand was significantly worse than a gun. It was a "spin fiddler", essentially a small toy held between the fingertips that would spin for a few minutes when given impulse by the remaining fingers of the holder. Though its purpose was to harmlessly promote a more productive day by controlling a person's desire to fidget with whatever they could get their hands on, it had quickly evolved into a symbol of wealth and 'hip-ness' among children around 12 years of age. Many varieties existed, from simple ones that truly existed without malicious intent that spun quietly and were easy to hold for extended periods of time to oversized metallic behemoths with LED lights whose sole purpose was to lure those unfortunate enough to get caught up by the trend and post it all over social media outlets while giving the manufacturers a quick buck.

The one he held was of the obnoxious kind, it was golden and was laced with designs ranging from a skull to a motorbike wheel. In defense of the revolver, it did look rather hypnotizing as it spun, the designs were placed so that when it was spinning it would bring forth the illusion that the designs themselves were somehow not moving. LuLu remembered seeing one in the store a few days ago and recalled its price to be upwards of 100 dollars, she failed to comprehend the price difference between a 5-dollar and a 200-dollar revolver since in the end all they did was spin.

The boy in question was not the only one who had it. The school Lucy attended was so incredibly out of touch with the rest of the world - mostly because of its strict regulations regarding internet use, the large workloads, and the fact that it was quite far from any other school - that fads such as "krumping" and handheld phone charms hung about for far longer than they had any right to, pushing students further and further from what was actually popular among seniors at the time.

The country's anthem began to play, all students returned to their desks and stood up quietly with their right hands on their chest in respect. Then, almost as if it were rehearsed, the door to the room was pushed open by a girl.

She walked to the nearest empty desk, unphased by the anthem and started twirling her own fiddler in her right hand with her left hand on her chest in a lazy attempt to calm the teacher, who was visibly angered by the girl's lack of conduct.

Once the anthem had finished playing, the instructor rushed over to the girl's desk in a strut that was so hurried that anyone who had not seen his infuriated face would be forgiven for assuming that he was in dire need of a toilet. He proceeded to scold the girl thoroughly. She was clearly new to the school, or at least to the homeroom as LuLu and her friends had never seen her face before.

A few seconds later, once Lucy began to lose interest in the chastisement of a new face, she heard the new student's voice for the first time

"My name is Miranda, Miranda Van Der Waals. I refuse to be abused so!" her voice was loud and quiet at the same time, somewhat miraculously "you could have told me without such a rude and uninviting tone in your voice and I would have heard you just the same as if you had implanted a speaker into my ear!"

Soon after, the teacher returned to his desk to prepare and begin the announcements, Miranda Van Der Waals sat down at her chair, looking displeased before a swarm of kids gathered around to ask questions about her origins and the fiddler and other such small talk.

Although Lucy wasn't particularly interested in her, since her first impression already rubbed her the wrong way, she couldn't help but stare at the fiddler. She couldn't make out any of its features mid-spin, but it looked rather plain, and its bearings were loud enough to be heard by other students who began to point it out to her.

"It's not like that, I legiti-" Miranda began before she was interrupted by the teacher as he began the announcements.


	2. Chapter 2 - The Amphitheatre

Chapter 2

LuLu, Aminah and Tabitha made their way down the hallway to the amphitheatre

"I can't wait to be bored to death with science for half an hour" Tabitha complained

"Surely it won't be that bad, at the very least it's supposed to help us study, isn't it?" Aminah tried to console her

"At least it's only 30 minutes, it could be worse and be a whole hour" Lucy looked on the bright side of things

"Then you'd miss the entirety of first block, rather than just half" Tabitha said sarcastically

"Oh, you're right, I completely forgot about that, yesssssssss" Lucy said, popping off briefly

"Taking your studies more seriously, LuLu?" Aminah asked with genuine curiosity and a tinge of sarcasm

"I-I always take my studies seriously." Lucy quickly retaliated, glancing at the floor

"Suuuuuuuure you do, haha *SMACK*" Tabitha slapped her in the back playfully "as long as you've got that yoyo you never do any work, and you ALWAYS have that yoyo"

"You do seem to go just about nowhere without it" Aminah pointed out with a giggle "I think it's kind of cute, it makes you seem kind of like a little kid"

"Ow! Hey I am not a little kid, I'm 17 and turn 18 in like two months; that's almost an adult!" Lucy turned around angrily

"And that reaction just makes me believe that you're a kid even more!" Tabitha hugged her from the back and started pinching her cheeks while making mock baby noises, to which Aminah responded with her usual giggle as Lucy struggled to break free "uguu gaga meemee moomeeeee~~"

Suddenly, the three of them felt their gaze drawn to something. When they turned their heads the saw the eyes of a person that two of the three girls had never seen before. Miranda Van Der Waals was giving them a stare that harbored a slew of emotions, but kindness and openness did not seem to be one of them. The three froze in their tracks as time seemed to slow to a halt.

Tabitha was more likely to notice the girl's curvy figure, she had a large bust that vainly attempted to hide behind her button up shirt and wide hips with thick legs that were comparable to that of the Amazons of legend along with her taller than average height.

Aminah would probably notice her shoulder length hair and soft facial features that would have been inviting were it not for the piercing stare of those emerald eyes.

Lucy may have paid attention to these in different circumstances, but was once again fixated on the spinning object between Miranda's right hand's index finger and thumb. It seemed to not be merely spinning, for it was constantly changing direction thanks to input from Miranda's middle finger and made a satisfying click as it made contact with her fingernails. These clicks snapped the girls back into reality.

"What the fuck just happened" Lucy asked to nobody in particular

"Is this what sex feels like?" Tabitha asked with her pupils dilated and staring off into space, putting a larger percentage of her weight on Lucy

"Uuhh" Aminah shivered "those eyes…"

Lucy's mind returned to the revolver, it was completely featureless and plain, it appeared to be designed not for showing off, but for ease of use and effectiveness, much like her own spinning toy.

Their thoughts were interrupted by a voice emanating from the ceiling.

"All senior year students, please head to the amphitheatre for the presentation from our guest" it said in a monotone voice

"Oh right, that's where we're going" Tabitha said, picking herself up

"Let's go, then" Aminah instructed

When they sat down, Lucy noticed Miranda not too far from them, sitting next to a girl who was enthused with a conversation between herself and Miranda that appeared somewhat one-sided. She remembered being in a project with her a year back, her name was Felicity Cavendish. Felicity was a standout character, full of quirkiness and indifference to anything that she did not like, as a result, she spent most of her time in school watching tv and movies on her laptop. It would seem that her fascination with the uninterested Miranda stemmed from Miranda's physical resemblance to a hollywood actress.

"Tabitha, put your phone away, the presentation's about to start!" Aminah whispered at her.

"Hold on, lemme finish reading this article about that new expansion pack…" Tabitha began scrolling faster

"Thank you, all, for being with us here today. This half an hour-long presentation will result in you all being more capable at that which you already are good at, and will allow you to self reflect on what you need to improve on, since this won't affect that" the principal said "we will be joined by a guest speaker from the esteemed local research institute, and he will now take over the presentation, please welcome him with sincerity."

A young man stepped out onto the stage. He looked around 22 and was wearing a business suit. Despite how many people were silently staring at him he seemed as confident and relaxed as if he were talking to a room full of his close relatives.

"Good morning, all." he spoke into the microphone in front of him "you may all be wondering what the purpose of today's get-together is…"

"Ok, done, what'd I miss?" Tabitha whispered at Lucy

"Big Boy Businessman started talking" Lucy said, absently looking at the presenter

"I will play some music for you all, and you will listen to that music," he continued speaking "it will make you feel like you're on top of the world..."

"Damn, he's pretty cute" Tabitha whispered "isn't he your type, LuLu?" she playfully nudged Lucy with her elbow

"Come on, look at him. He's like 45 years older than i am" Lucy responded

"You will suddenly feel like you have gotten much better at that which you are passionate about, and maybe even develop new skills" the presenter said "however, you will not notice any change in that which you are not fond of…"

"What do you jack off to, anyways…?" Tabitha asked as if it were the most casual thing in the world

"Is now really the time to talk about this?" Lucy turned to face her and gave her an incredulous look

"This will serve as an opportunity for you to see what it is you need to improve on." Lucy was having a hard time hearing the presenter "its effects will only last a day as to not give studious children any unfair advantages, you will use this day to find what it is that has not changed, and subsequently force it to change into something of your liking"

"Not like anyone's paying attention to us" Tabitha kept blabbering "you know Aminah is into chest hair? Isn't that weird? I thought she'd be into like suspenders and textbooks or something"

"Once the day ends, if you find yourself missing the skills that today has given you, then it is up to you to improve yourself to the point at which you are once again satisfied"

"You already know what I'm into…" Tabitha continued whispering

"Let the experiment…" The presenter said

"...But what about you?"

"...Begin!"


	3. Chapter 3 - Abilities (Part 1)

Chapter 3

Vivald's Op. 3 No. 6 in A minor from L'Estro Armonico. It was a fine piece, if a bit overplayed, but a very pleasant listening experience nonetheless. Though she wasn't really sure what it is she was expecting, she definitely was not prepared for the mind-changing, ability-improving noise to be a well-known classical piece. Lucy wondered if this was a not-so-clever attempt by the school to pull students away from the repetitive and uninteresting pop music that plagued the radio nowadays.

She looked around to see if the effect had truly taken place, but saw nobody making any notable reaction. The presenter stood where he was before, not exactly motionless but more of a relaxed stance, as if there were no real reason for him to move. After a few seconds of consideration, Lucy decided that it would be best to sit still for a few minutes longer and enjoy the music while it lasted.

But then, she felt a strange urge, almost as though she were a puppet of her own subconsciousness, and pulled her yoyo out of her pocket. She didn't tie it around her finger or start rewinding the string, but rather she poked at the string between the two halves to make the bearing spin. Why she had chosen to do this was beyond her, and she found it incredibly difficult to stop.

Concerned with her behavior, she turned to Tabitha for help, only to see that she was poking at the screen of her phone, which wasn't even on. Lucy turned to Aminah, only to see her folding up and unfolding a napkin. In the midst of confusion, Lucy heard Felicity's voice reciting lines from a movie, Miranda seemed to be looking down at her lap.

She had not noticed it before, but there was a high-pitched shrill in the Vivaldi piece that was growing louder and louder. As it grew, so did her desire to poke the bearing in her yoyo. She frantically looked to both sides, only to see that everyone was doing something peculiar. There was a boy mashing his fingers together, another was frantically scrambling a rubik's cube, and another was stomping her feet at the floor.

Before long, the noise was unbearably loud, Lucy felt her senses start to leave her and her hands began to shake uncontrollably. She tried to scream, unable to hear it due to the deafening shrill in the music.

Then it stopped.

The Vivaldi piece concluded on a satisfying V-I cadence in the key of A minor.

No longer having the strength to conjure words she leant back into her seat with a heavy and raspy pant. Covered in sweat, she noticed a weight on her lap, and managed enough willpower to lift her head to see Aminah exhausted in a similar manner. In fact, all the students in the amphitheatre looked like they had all run marathons underwater.

"That concludes today's presentation, everyone please give a round of applause to our guest speaker," the principal said into the microphone "if you find your current attire to no longer be suitable, all students will be permitted to change into their gym uniforms for the rest of the day"

Of course, nobody actually clapped, they could barely move. A few seconds later, some of the more physically capable students started sitting up straight and began to awkwardly put away whatever they had taken out during the music playing.

"Hhaahh...hhahh..hhaahh...what...haah...was...that…?" Aminah began to right herself from Lucy's lap.

"Hhhahh...hhhhaaaaaaaaaaauuuuuughhh….dammit…" Tabitha grunted, sweat pouring from her every orifice.

"Are...hhhehhh….are you...hhhauhh...guys okay?...hhunngggh" Lucy asked

Lucy placed her hand on the back of Tabitha's chair to try and sit up straight, only barely managing to do so. She had probably never been so tired before, it was as if someone was squeezing her like a wet cloth, forcing all the air and sweat out of her. Gradually, she began to slowly catch her breath.

"Lets get out of here… huhhh" Tabitha suggested, also recovering

"Hhahh...yeah…" Aminah righted herself

When Lucy tried to get up, she found that her muscles weren't actually tired, she didn't feel like she had overexerted herself in a P.E. class, the wet cloth analogy became even more accurate. As a result, she had little trouble actually getting up and moving, save the fact that she herself was extremely fatigued still.

"I need a shower…" Lucy said

"You said it" Tabitha had gotten up too

"...Tabitha..?" they heard Aminah's voice from behind them and turned around

"What's...what's that on your chair?" Aminah pointed at the backrest of the chair Tabitha was on

On the spot where lucy had placed her hand to get up, there was a metallic object. It was a ball bearing joint. It was spinning slowly, but it moved nonetheless. Lucy hesitantly grabbed it from the chair, it was around the size of her palm, and was shockingly light, almost as if it weren't there, yet she could feel it and the balls inside smoothly moving around.

"...haahh...a bearing?" Lucy was confused

"Can we...hhahh...talk later?" Tabitha urged "I don't...hhgh...like swimming in my own clothes...hheh"

Lucy took the bearing and the three of them left to grab their spare clothes and change. Once they had successfully dried up using towels and changed into their gym clothes, they found themselves still somewhat out of breath and stood out in the hall in front of the bathroom

"What the hell was that?" Tabitha asked, angry and confused

"I can't believe those 30 minutes passed by so quickly, maybe it was that screeching noise?" Aminah put forth her hypothesis

"Dammit, still sweating like a horse" Tabitha said, awkwardly pulling her shirt from her skin "uhh...LuLu...?"

Lucy was still staring at the bearing, it was still spinning, but it had sped up at some point.

But what was it?

Obviously it was a bearing, but why did it just show up from where she put her hand? Why was it spinning? Where did it come from?

"LuLu?"

She couldn't put her finger on it, it almost seemed as though she could influence its rotation, or that it was communicating details about its angular momentum to her. It was strange. Additionally, it appeared to be wedged inside the chair, but she pulled it out like it was nothing.

"Guys, what's this thing?" Lucy held it out to Aminah and Tabitha

"That's a ball bearing, you idiot" Tabitha said as she lay down on the floor to catch her breath some more

"I know that… but, where did it come from?" Lucy stared at it

"It was on your chair earlier, wasn't it? Aminah asked

"It was, like, inside it…" Lucy said absently

"Maybe it happens when wierd yoyo babies finally hit puberty" Tabitha joked from the floor

"Oh my god I'm 17 years old, I started puberty over 5 years ago" Lucy was too tired to be properly angry "anyways, I just touched the chair, and this bearing appeared where I put my hand"

"Maybe you can use it to make a giant yoyo?" Tabitha continued to jest

"Die" Lucy said, tired of her bs

"In all seriousness, though." Aminah spoke up "from what I saw inside the bathroom, it looks like you had some degree of control over how it spins"

"Yeah…" Lucy stared at it intently

Lucy barely noticed the brief silence between the three, none of them really understood where that bearing had come from. Tabitha suspected that it might be some form of prank, but the bearing truly appeared to have merged with the chair, as if a part of the chair had bulged out and become a bearing. Aminah, on the other hand, found herself strangely drawn to it, she wanted to hold it in her hands and she did not understand why

"LuLu?" Aminah looked up from her kneeled position on the floor "do you mind if I hold it?"

"Uhh" for some reason, Lucy hesitated. "Sure"

Once Aminah had it in her hands, she cupped the small bearing in them for reasons that she herself was unsure of. With that, she noticed a dramatic change in weight and feel of the bearing. She opened her hands to see what had caused this, and, to her surprise, she found that the bearing was now a white, donut-shaped object.

"..."

"Is that...paper?" Tabitha looked up.

"...uhmm... I…" Aminah was speechless. First, she had seen Lucy change the speed of a ball bearing's rotation just by looking at it, and then, she had converted that very same bearing - which appeared out of thin air - into paper

"What's going on?" Lucy looked around nervously "Am I being pranked by some illusionists?"

Tabitha was finally confused enough to get up and take a closer look. She leaned her weight on a nearby window and stared in awe at the bizarre events that were unfolding before her eyes. Aminah had unfolded the paper bearing, and it had turned into a plain piece of a4 paper.

"Could this be..." Tabitha asked "the screeching from before?"

"N-no way…" Lucy tried to convince herself "how could some classical music and a high pitched squeal"

Lucy looked at the paper

"Cause this?"

"..."

"..."

The girls exchanged confused looks at themselves, and then the paper

"Wait" Tabitha ran back into the locker room "Don't move! I'll be right back!" she yelled from around the corner.

After a few more seconds of intense gear-grinding by the minds of Lucy and Aminah, Lucy suddenly reached out and grabbed the paper and crushed it up into a ball.

"Alright, alright." she laughed nervously "thats enough of this wierd nonsense, class is going to start in like 30 seconds so we should get Tabitha and get going, right?"

"...yeah…" Aminah looked a little sad as she watched the paper become a ball

Lucy dismissively tossed the paper ball into a trash can behind her and started to walk over to the changing rooms to retrieve the probably lost Tabitha. *thump* went the paper ball as it crashed into the contents of the bin

Wait...

*thump*?

Onomatopoeic representation of paper hitting an object is not something commonly heard, the mass of the crumpled up ball and the relatively low velocity it can achieve in the air give it low kinetic energy, and thus even less of that is dispersed into the air as noise. However, if one were to attempt to replicate said noise, it would most certainly not be a *thump*.

Lucy froze in her tracks, it simply could not be, it must have been a coincidence; surely, another student just happened to drop a heavier item such as a water bottle or an old lunch tray into it.

There was no possible way that the ball of paper that Lucy had tossed into the garbage can had turned into something. She dashed to the trashcan in what felt like milliseconds to bystanders, but seemed like an eternity to Lucy. once she had arrived, she thrust her upper body over the rim of the bin to examine its contents with a force that made the entire can convulse and almost caused her to fall over.

Inside, there was no crumpled up ball of paper. There were banana peels, tissues, half-eaten food, and even a sock, but not any crumpled balls of paper.

Instead, there was a baseball in the very center, its mass and velocity pushing aside other items inside the bin to form a sort of crater. The wad of paper she had tossed into the trash can had turned into a baseball. That wad of paper was originally a bearing that she plucked from a chair.

"Wh-wh...what?" Lucy whispered to herself in disbelief

"Aminah, here!" Tabitha's voice came from behind Lucy. "hold this pen between your hands, like this" Tabitha cupped the pen for a second before handing it off to Aminah, who did as instructed

Once her hands reopened, she held out a piece of paper that was rolled up into a tight tube around the size of the pen. Lucy's mind pulled back memories from the presentation not too long ago, specifically the high-pitched squeal that played alongside the vivaldi piece, and the physically battered state that it left them in.

"Try turning it back" Tabitha said, picking up the roll of paper and handing it back to Aminah.

Aminah once again held the object between her hands, concealing it from view for a second before producing the exact same pen that it had originally been. Lucy's response was to quickly strut over, take the pen, and scribble onto her arm to see if it would work.

It worked.

"How in the hell…" Lucy whispered to herself once again, in disbelief.

"Relax, LuLu! You're so uptight" Tabitha swung her arms around her and started to pinch her cheeks once more "this is actually pretty cool, don't you think? That weird presenter dude gave Aminah super powers! What do you think we'll get?"

Superpowers? This isn't some comic book, Tabitha, this is reality; where super powers don't exist, Lucy can't produce bearings out of thin air, and Aminah can't perform transmutation on small objects. Lucy wanted Tabitha off her back so she could think straight, but once she was in her cheek-pinchy-mode, there was no stopping her, she'd cling on for dear life.

Then, suddenly, the pinching stopped. Odd, these kind of things usually last upwards of a minute, rarely do they stop after a mere three pinches. In Tabitha's words, she loved the adorable blush that the pinches gave Lucy, they made her apparently look even more like a child. It was almost worthy of concern that Tabitha had stopped so early, it gave Lucy a weird sense of security, knowing that she could count on her friend to always be at her back. She turned around to confront Tabitha for her sins (or rather lack of sins) at her cheeks.

The sight that awaited her was certainly not what she had expected. Before Lucy stood Tabitha, of course, but on her body and clothing were several donut-shaped metallic objects with metal balls on chains inside them. In total, there were around 15 of them, ranging in size from around 30cm in diameter to under five.

"...Ta-" Aminah asked, confusion and shock written all over her otherwise adorable face.

Before Aminah could finish what she was going to say, she was interrupted by a loud whirring noise. All the bearings had simultaneously begun to spin at an alarming rate. Their angular inertia caused Tabitha's entire body to be thrust into a front-flip rotation, before long, she had slammed face-first into the floor of the hallway, protected only by the presence of the bearings on her face and neck. With that, she took off, feet first, away from Lucy and Aminah at speeds and accelerations rivaling high-end sports cars.

Tabitha was apparently too terrified to move, let alone scream, because she continued on her journey as quietly as an idiot-shaped skateboard could possibly go. Lucy and Aminah snapped out of seeing their best friend covered in bearings speed off down the empty hallway, heading full force into the floor-to-ceiling glass windows that separated the school from the outside, and began to sprint after her faster than they would ever have in any P.E. class.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA" Tabitha finally remembered how to scream around three seconds into the beginning of her wondrous adventure and began wildly flailing her arms and legs in a vain attempt to somehow slow down.

Being in P.E. uniforms ironically did not help them run much faster, and they were unable to reach Tabitha before she crashed into the glass and suffered numerous deep cuts.

"STOP!" Lucy yelled at her, even though she knew it would amount to nothing.

Then, behind the two sprinting girls came a loud thud accompanied by the sound of a 17 year old girl hyperventilating.

Lucy noted that in front of her, Tabitha had not smashed into the glass. Tabitha had not continued onwards. Tabitha had not received painful and potentially life-threatening cuts from the collision with the large glass plane. Instead, Tabitha had appeared underneath the window, all the bearings had stopped spinning and were slowly disappearing while the poor girl stared up at the ceiling and shook violently on the floor. Lucy and Aminah turned around and sprinted the other way once they had pieced together what happened.

Tabitha teleported.

Lucy had acquired the ability to create ball bearings that would spin at her command.

Aminah had gained the power to turn paper into objects and vice versa.

Tabitha was now capable of teleportation.

Lucy, Tabitha and Aminah (though Tabitha significantly less) recalled the sensations that the loud, high-pitched noise had produced in them.


	4. Chapter 4 - Abilities (Part 2)

Chapter 4

Tabitha began to slowly recover from her experience as a longboard, and her breathing gradually returned to its normal state.

"I-I'm fine, guys, I just panicked" she consoled the worried Lucy and Aminah that sat at her side.

"Are you sure, your eyes are bloodshot…" Aminah pointed out.

"It's alright… BUT DID YOU SEE HOW I TELEPORTED, WASN'T THAT AWESOME?" Tabitha quickly changed the subject back, suddenly sounded like she had just injected a dozen grams of raw caffeine into her veins.

"I'll admit, it was pretty cool" Aminah giggled "How did you know where to go?"

Tabitha's face rapidly went from one of ecstatic content to one of deep thought as she assumed a variation of The Thinker's pose comically quickly.

"I actually don't know, it's almost as if I knew that I would end up back here" Tabitha thought out loud .

"..." Lucy tried to comprehend what was going on

"Something about the window..." Tabitha got up and put her hand on the window "I get the feeling tha-"

And with that, Tabitha was gone from their vision. Lucy didn't remember Tabitha vanishing, it felt like she was never in front of them to begin with. From behind her, she heard Tabitha's voice, yelling at them from a reasonable distance. When she turned around, she saw that Tabitha had returned to the place that she should have crashed into moments ago, beside the large glass pane next to the door that lead outside.

"It worked!" she said loudly before placing her hand on the glass once more.

"How…" Lucy whispered to herself.

"Just as I thought," Tabitha's voice suddenly directly behind her startled Lucy "as long as they are reflective or shiny, I can teleport between them!"

Lucy jumped at Tabitha's voice with a little squeal that sounded like what a hamster would do when presented with food.

"Tabitha, don't scare me like that!" Lucy turned around with a distressed look and a hand on her chest, Tabitha responded with a smug laugh.

"Lulu, how do you make bearings?" Aminah walked closer and asked randomly.

"Uhhhh…" Lucy was taken aback by the sudden question and responded nervously "pffffbbt I don't really know."

"Try putting one on the wall" Tabitha butted in.

"S-sure…" Lucy hesitantly faced towards the wall.

She placed her hand on the wall, and envisioned a bearing attached to it horizontally. Once she removed her hand, she saw the bearing was right where she had imagined it; Lucy was surprised that she was able to do it so easily, it almost came naturally to her, as if she had been doing it all her life. The bearing itself wasn't moving, it half-stuck out from the wall, perfectly still. It seemed to call to her, somehow.

It was almost like the bearing was waiting for instructions. Or perhaps, it was that Lucy felt the urge to make it do something.

"Make it spin, hurry!" Tabitha read her mind.

After a long pause, Lucy returned her gaze towards the still, almost inviting, ball bearing joint that stuck out halfway from the wall. She began to concentrate on spinning it; once again, she envisioned it. Indeed, she could feel the bearing respond to her as through telepathy, however, she did not expect anything to be attached to it as it began its spin.

When the bearing rotated clockwise, with it came a rectangular section of the wall. It was about 10cm in height, 30cm in width, and 3cm deep. After gasps from Aminah and Tabitha, Lucy found out that she had full control over the rotation and speed of the slab of wall that was attached to the bearing. The section of the wall fit perfectly into the area that it had detached from and appeared to have been cut with a highly precise laser beam, that was the only explanation for its perfectly smooth edges. Lucy lodged the brick back into its place once she had understood what it meant, and the bearing disappeared, it knew that its purpose had been fulfilled, and vanished from existence.

"Wow, you can pick up walls with it too?" Aminah's eyes shone at her friend's newfound abilities.

"You can even see some of the wiring inside for the lights" Tabitha pointed out before briefly pinching Lucy's cheek once more "your new gift is pretty neat, isnt it LuLu?"

"Yeah, I guess it is" Lucy had a faint smile on her face which quickly turned into painful realization "Oh, shit! Guys, second block started 5 minutes ago! We gotta go!"

"Oh, jesus, you're right!" Tabitha grabbed Aminah by the arm and dragged her frantically to their shared class. "See you at lunch, LuLu!"

Lucy bolted off in the other direction; her class was near the door to the outside. On her brief sprint, she wondered what it would be like, entering her essentially new class. The people inside it would be the same and the teacher would also not change, of course. But a fundamentally different atmosphere was to be expected. As far as Lucy's knowledge of what happened in the amphitheater goes, everyone in senior year was given some unique super power, it was almost a scene from a comic book or something. She couldn't help but ponder as to who would get what or how they would react. There were bound to be some mishaps while students adjusted, perhaps even some rather serious injuries, but it was almost impossible for the rest of the day to go mundanely. Even in the last 15 or so minutes, revelations were made about Aminah and Tabitha, the two people she had known the longest out of all her years in education.

With her spirits lifted, she almost forgot about the fact that she was late to her math class and that her teacher would surely do a number on her either during or after the period had ended. She opened the door to the classroom and burst inside, almost slamming the door behind her, and was greeted with beautiful scenery, enormous trees, the sound of birds chirping, and about a dozen or so people passed out on the floor.

Hold on…

Trees?

Birds?

This was a classroom, not a forest. Lucy was certain that she did not continue straight onwards through the door and glass pane from earlier, she was positive that she entered the classroom that was her math class.

Scenery? The awful color-pencil posters the ninth graders had drawn could not be described as anything but hideous. Where were the posters, anyway?

Actually, where are the students? Where is Mr. Trudeau?

Were they…

The bodies?

"..."

Where was she?

She turned around on the spot, expecting to see a plain wooden door with several seating charts on the inside. What she actually saw were more trees, more birds, and more unconscious bodies.

She frantically looked around to see more of the same.

Lucy was finally able to take in the gravity of the situation.

This was a forest, not a classroom.


	5. Chapter 5 - Survival Instinct

Chapter 5

When Lucy stepped foot into what was once her math classroom, she saw it had become a tropical rainforest, complete with flora and fauna. Additionally, the unmoving bodies of her classmates lay down in haphazard positions, as if they had been punched or knocked unconscious.

Questions flooded Lucy's mind. What is this? Is someone's special power the ability to turn classrooms into forests? Why can't I leave? Why does this feel familiar, somehow? For the time being, she decided to tend to her peers. Lucy began to step forward cautiously, when suddenly, she felt the earth below her shake, causing her to freeze.

*Thump*

An entirely new set of questions flooded her mind.

*Thump*

What was the source of this crunching noise and trembling?

*Thump*

Was she dreaming?

*THUMP*

Why was the sound getting closer?

*THUMP*

This time, she managed to pinpoint the source of the sound and traced it back to the foliage on her right. From it emerged a foot.

This foot was no ordinary foot, it was brown, had three toes with sharp nails at their ends, and was about the size of an adult male. It was far too massive an appendage to belong to a bird, and did not match the feet of the largest land animal, the elephant.

So what was it?

Lucy looked up to see what the foot supported. The creature that owned that foot surprised her, and not in a good way like the surprise one gets after realizing they've won the lottery.

'Surprise' may actually be an inappropriate word for the reaction that Lucy had at seeing a Tyrannosaurus Rex emerge from among the trees and walk behind her and her classmates as if they had not existed.

A T-rex? The idea of seeing one in person may have excited a young child with a passion for dinosaurs, but in Lucy's mind it instilled nothing but horror and absolute despair upon her. How was she supposed to respond to seeing a supposedly extinct organism casually stroll in front of her? If it came after her, she would surely perish.

The mere thought of dying made Lucy start shaking uncontrollably and caused her pupils to contract.

'Fear' could not begin to describe what Lucy was feeling.

She likely would have stayed frozen on the spot for hours had she not felt a light touch on her legs to snap her back into the twisted reality she now inhabited. Her natural instinct was to look down and lift her leg in case some bug had decided to take a breather on her bare leg, though Lucy would much rather have seen a centipede or a hornet on her leg than what actually caused her skin to react.

At her feet were several dozen velociraptors speeding by at 60 kilometers per hour, the wind they displaced had collided with her leg, triggering the response. Despite the force of the impact between the wind and her leg being comparable to that of a ping pong ball gently tossed at her, Lucy was nearly thrown off her feet.

This time, only one thought was in Lucy's mind.

"I'm going to die" she said out loud in a quiet voice.

Lucy fell to her knees and hugged herself with hands on her shoulders for dear life. She was staring at the floor with anguish plastered all over her face

"I'm going to die" Lucy repeated

Lucy emptied her stomach's contents onto the grass in front of her and slumped to her side like a ragdoll. She assumed the fetal position, covering her head with her hands and started yelling the scream of a woman being tortured.

"I'm going to die" she said once more, almost a whisper

Lucy was shaking on the grass, her half-digested breakfast in front of her, and dinosaurs all around her. She remained in this pitiful state for over five minutes, too afraid to move a muscle and either forgetting to breathe or hyperventilating.

"Relax, they don't care about us" Lucy heard a male voice from in front of her.

Lucy jerked her head up so hard she almost pulled a muscle. The source of the voice was a 17 year old male who seemed visually uncomfortable, the sight of an otherwise rather good looking girl covered in grass with bloodshot eyes and drool streaming down her face was enough to put him on edge.

"I'm going to die" Lucy whispered so quietly that she was unsure that he would even hear her.

"...You're not going to die, don't worry." he said, reassured of the girl's sanity in no part thanks to the psychotic facial expressions she had.

"I'm going to..." Lucy whispered again.

"Hey, listen. Here's what's gonna happen." the boy said, changing to a sterner tone.

"...die?" Lucy asked.

"I'm going to knock you out, then I'll head for the exit, which is somewhere in this area." he began to approach her slowly with a menacing look on his face.

Lucy began shaking even more viciously and accompanied it with even more shrill screams. It was unlikely that this boy would be able to kill Lucy, he was pretty skinny and lanky, it looked like he would have a good deal of trouble taking on a sandwich. Despite this, Lucy trembled in fear like a squirrel would when cornered by a falcon.

"Even though I got this sweet new power that lets me jump super high, I can't really use it in self defense; but at least I go higher than what my pogo stick usually does." he talked to himself as he neared her "I just waited for everyone else to slap each other silly and then I pounced on the last guy and kicked him in the face as hard as I could. Then, right after that, you showed up and started screaming like a little girl."

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA" Lucy screamed at nothing in particular "I'M GONNA DIE"

"Don't worry, I won't kill you, I'll just knock you out, and then I'll leave through the door," he looked around with concern "wherever it is…"

"GET AWAY FROM MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE" Lucy screamed with tears flowing down her face.

Once she finished screaming, she slapped the floor as hard as she could, seemingly out of instinct.

A ball bearing joint appeared on the floor where it had made contact with her hand and began to spin.

As it rotated, it picked up a massive rectangular chunk of the floor and slammed into the boy at full force, not too differently from how a rake would pop up and hit someone when they stepped on it in old cartoon slapstick shows. After a few seconds, it retracted back into the floor to reveal the boy had fallen to the floor, unconscious.

"I'm…" Lucy stopped crying for a second and looked at her hand.

Her hand.

The hand that could create ball bearing joints which would move to her will.

The hand that was capable of defending her, just as it did against the boy who wanted to knock her out. For but an instant, Lucy felt a ray of hope pierce her heart and mind, she was almost determined to right herself.

The hand that would allow her to be brave, she could depend on it.

Ever since Lucy was a little girl, she'd been afraid of rather innocent things such as the dark and mildly spooky stories, it was another one of the reasons that Tabitha always teased her for being childish. It was Lucy's fear that made her seem like a little girl. The sound of balloons popping, firework shows, being left alone in strange places; all of these made her more uncomfortable than she would ever admit to anyone, even herself.

She had always felt defenseless against such things, relying on others to help her through them, be it her family or her friends.

In her mind, Lucy had but one question.

Would this hand allow her to rely on it?

Lucy began to pick herself up from the ground. Over the course of 20 seconds, she got onto her butt in a sitting position and wiped away the drool, snot, and tears that covered her face. She was scared. More scared than ever before in her 17 years of life.

Lucy looked at her hand once more, it shook like it was being electrocuted.

*THUMP*

Another footstep approached from about 20 meters behind her

"I'm not gonna die" she said to herself, getting up on the shakiest, most fragile pair of legs any human would ever possess.

*THUMP*

It was 15 meters away this time.

Lucy ran, she ran as hard and as fast as she could. She would not look back, she couldn't even if she wanted to, her eyes were closed. She had no idea what she was running from, it could have been a pigeon or a stegosaurus. Whatever it was, she wouldn't let it overpower her, even if for the rest of her life she was mocked for running from a pony.

That being said, she was still more terrified than she ever knew she could be.

After a few seconds of running blind, she ran face-first into a flat object, which caused her to fall back onto her butt. Once she opened her eyes, she saw a door.

Never in her life had Lucy been so relieved to see a door.

She opened it with her hand, not a single bearing appeared, and she was outside in the hallway once again.

Lucy passed out on the floor in the fetal position.


	6. Chapter 6 - Shuffle (Part 1)

Chapter 6

"How late are we?" Tabitha asked Aminah as they ran to their class.

"I think around 5 minutes," Aminah responded "this is gonna suck!"

"Dammit!" Tabitha said as they neared the door "We missed Alfred's daily card trick!"

"At least we can always ask him to repeat it after class." Aminah said out of breath.

"Yeah, I guess," Tabitha replied "but then we miss the magic in a sense, don't we?"

Aminah shrugged as an answer.

Tabitha opened the door and ran inside, letting Aminah enter behind her before slamming the door and profusely apologizing for their tardiness. Much to the surprise of the two girls, their teacher did not begin to scream at them like he usually did, not did he rant about the importance of punctuality for half of the lesson. Confused, they looked up to see what had preoccupied everyone so much. Had Alfred's card trick been so impressive that it paralyzed the entire classroom in utter shock and astonishment?

In reality, that idea may not have been too far from the truth.

When the girls scanned the class, they found it was actually not a classroom, but a rocky, dark, and incredibly stuffy open expanse. It was the middle of night time and they appeared to be on an island of dark brown stone. Around the island was no water, however; instead, an orange liquid that appeared to be lava flowed slowly upstream.

"Wwwhha...?" Tabitha froze in confusion.

Alfred was standing a few meters in front of them, his back facing them and staring ominously off into the dark, starless sky.

"...Al…?" Tabitha asked "what's…going on here…?"

"The sky…" Alfred spoke "it has no stars."

"...?" Tabitha and Aminah were even more confused now.

"Well, though it may look like that at a glance, the stars are actually still there," he continued "it's just that their shine is out-done by that of another bright body. In this case it's the lava around us."

"Tabitha, what's going on?" Aminah asked, nervously approaching Tabitha for comfort.

"Today, all of the students in the 12th grade received an 'ability' of some sorts. In a way it turned our classmates into stars, shining with power they could never even dream of having." Alfred slowly turned around after this statement and faced the girls directly "But, I am the lava that out-shines them all!"

It was then that Tabitha noticed that behind Alfred were the unconscious bodies of everyone in her math class, including their teacher.

"He has an ability, too?" Aminah whispered to herself, loud enough so that Tabitha could hear.

"Al, what did you do to them!?" Tabitha asked him, frustrated at the idea that he would take down his own classmates for the heck of it.

"What did I do to them?" Alfred asked, giving his fallen companions a sideways glance "All I did was shine, it just so happened that my radiance surpassed theirs."

Alfred tossed his arms up in the air and raised his head at the sky before rambling on about how he overtook his classmates in power. It was at this moment that Tabitha came to the realization that she may have to engage Alfred in a fight of some sort, and perhaps use her ability to aid her. The whole concept was straight out of a comic book; teens get powers, teens have to fight other teens to stay relevant, and eventually the big bad guy is defeated and everyone is happy.

She just wasn't sure as to whether or not it would end happily.

Regardless, the problem on Tabitha's mind at the moment was how she was going to engage Alfred. She had some concept of her own power, but had no idea as to what Alfred could do. Clearly he was powerful enough to incapacitate 20 or so (presumably) equally powerful students with relative ease. She also had to ensure that as little harm as possible came to Aminah, who disliked conflict and would likely get steamrolled by an aggressive approach from Alfred in an attempt to come to a diplomatic solution.

"You said you got an ability…" Tabitha began "what is it?"

This caused a gigantic, smug grin to envelop Alfred's face, he must have thought he had the upper hand. In a sense, he did; Tabitha had decided to ask him a question pertaining to his power, yet she had not offered up any information about hers. If Tabitha wanted a chance at victory, she would need to outdo him in at least one category, and it may as well be knowledge.

Alfred decided that in the end he had nothing to lose, he was confident that his ability was enough of an advantage to him that giving Tabitha a bit of help would do her nothing.

"Well… I suppose I may as well tell you about my power." he put his arms on his waist and looked her dead in the eye "After all, it's not like you have any way of beating me."

He sounded like he was not only prepared to fight, but willing to do so. What on Earth was going on? Alfred had always been rather reserved in class and the hallways, only really speaking out when called on or when an opportunity to talk about the mechanics of card games presented itself. Was all of this one big joke? The new location, the superpowers, his classmates? Had his own brightness blinded him?

"In short, I can shuffle." he shifted his weight from one leg to the other "Just like with cards, I can shuffle people around, only when they're conscious."

"Sh-shuffle?" Aminah began to lean forward in curiosity "Like, positions?"

"Yup! I can trade places with people, I can choose when and with who as long as I can see them" Alfred pushed out a low chuckle "Quite possibly among the strongest abilities out there."

Changing places? It seemed pretty simple and straightforward, but it had a surprising amount of depth to it once one thought into it. If used appropriately, it could render all forms of one-on-one combat completely useless. That being said, Tabitha was not looking to testing the limits of his power, she just wanted to find out what was going on and get out of there.

"Where are we, Al? Isn't this supposed to be a math classroom?" Tabitha asked "Why is there lava everywhere and why is it pitch black? Where are the walls and ceiling? What's going on?"

"Don't you recognize it?" Alfred said in a genuinely confused tone "This is the lava place from Star Wars Episode III, right before Anakin becomes Darth Vader"

Star Wars? What was he talking about? This isn't the time to be making jokes about movies! For a good five minutes Tabitha and Aminah were sure they were about to be knocked out by this guy, and suddenly he starts talking about the prequels?

"...?" The two girls said nothing in unison

"I guess it doesn't matter." Alfred said, looking down at the floor "The desire I have right now to knock you out, I can barely contain myself!"

Desire was the word he used, this almost implied that he doesn't have proper control over it. Could this be the result of another student's ability? No, that couldn't be it. Since these abilities work like muscles (at least in Tabitha's case), they can't be activated while their victim is unconscious; if they could, then wouldn't that mean that there would be a dozen or so abilities running rampant in the background? Tabitha already knew that the abilities aren't bound to any particular rooms, since hers, Lucy's, and Aminah's all worked in the hallway, and she could sense that she was capable of teleporting to the window pane if she just touched the right object and gave her brain the signal.

All of this meant that the room-changing ability was wielded by someone who may have no idea of what they're even doing. They were capable of changing rooms, perhaps randomly, and along with that, it implanted a desire for all those inside the rooms to knock each other out.

"I don't understand why, but I want to make sure you don't interfere with this movie!" Alfred continued, gritting his hands in front of him "I'd never usually even punch my classmates, let alone knock them out, but I can't let them mess up Episode III!"

He pointed a finger at Tabitha and Aminah with an elongated arm.

"You!" he screamed at them "You two! You are inconsistencies with the universe of this room! And I will eliminate you!"


	7. Chapter 7 - Shuffle (Part 2)

Chapter 7

Tabitha tensed up, preparing for a brawl with Alfred, and she could hear and feel Aminah gasp as she readied herself.

"Beware, I can't take large items with me as I swap, only myself and my clothing" Alfred said, leaning down to pick something up.

Alfred stood up and held the object above his head at arms length. It was a rock, roughly, spherical and about 25cm in diameter, judging from its size, it looked to weigh around 20kg.

Tabitha then realized what he was going to do.

Her eyes widened in panic.

There was nothing she could do to avoid it.

She had lost before the battle had even begun.

Aminah must have realized it too, because the first thing she did was turn away from Tabitha and run in the location of where the door once was as fast as she could, away from Alfred.

"Pointless." Alfred said in a monotone voice from around 5 meters in front of them.

*THONK*

*THUD*

The rock was now on the floor, above and to the left of where Alfred had been holding it. But next to the rock was not Alfred, but Aminah. Alfred had swapped places with Aminah, leaving the rock behind. The ability had not turned Aminah around, so Tabitha got to see her face slip into unconsciousness.

"Why would she try to run, she knows there's no way out of this place." Alfred's voice came from directly to Tabitha's left, only a meter away from her.

Tabitha turned sharply to her left and wound her right fist up for a punch. The first ever act of physical aggression she'd ever commit to, over knocking out her best friend. It was incredible how she managed to build up such incredible speed in only a meter, she was nearly running at 7 meters per second by the time she was in punching range. She began twisting her body to deliver as much force as possible into the punch and cause maximum damage to the person who caused her friend to fall to the floor and to knock him out.

But the instant the punch was supposed to connect, he was no longer there. Instead, she tripped over something soft on the floor. When Tabitha looked back to see what she fell over, she saw Aminah, eyes closed, on the rocks.

So this was Alfred's shuffling ability. It allowed him to change places with whoever he could see. He could control its timing and with who it swapped. He attacked Aminah by holding a rock above his head and changing places with her, leaving the rock so that it would fall on her head and knock her out.

Tabitha couldn't run at him to attack, since he would just drop a rock on her head. Even if she were to somehow get him to not use the rock, it would be impossible to actually get near him. Alfred's ability preserved direction, which meant that if she ran in his direction and they swapped places, she would suddenly be moving away from him.

It was only a matter of time before he picked up the rock and used the same trick to get Tabitha. In order to beat him, Tabitha had to close the gap between the two to prevent him from using his ability effectively, but she could not physically move in his direction, and any step she took would ultimately bring the two further apart.

If she got knocked out, it would probably mean bad news; she'd likely dehydrate in this heat, and maybe even suffer a heat stroke if not treated properly, same goes for all the others in the room, including Aminah.

Tabitha had to find a way to move closer to him without moving.

This contradictory statement seemed almost impossible to accomplish, how would one move and also not move? As if there wasn't enough pressure already, Alfred began to pick up the rock once more, preparing himself for another attack to end it all.

All of this stress caused Tabitha to start sweating heavily, large drops of water slowly crawled down her skin before momentarily disappearing due to the intense heat in the environment.

Sweat.

Wait!

This gave Tabitha an idea. It was a risky one, one that would require precise timing and effective obstruction of her enemy's sight. She would also have to handle a direct hit from the rock.

"Don't bother trying to catch the rock, even if you do somehow exactly guess it's height and width, it's impossible to move for half a second after the shuffle happens." Alfred continued to explain his power with extreme confidence "Don't ask me why! I still have no clue!"

Tabitha had already noticed this earlier from Aminah's swap with him, she made no effort to continue to move, stood perfectly still in a running position, and let the rock hit her. For that reason, her plan did not involve catching the rock, at least not with her hands. If she tried to catch it with her arms stiff after the shuffle, they might break or get dislocated.

Her plan would take this into account, she didn't even need her arms.

"Say goodnight!" Alfred taunted.

Then, Tabitha jumped as hard as she could, directly upwards, bending her knees slightly as she took off.

*Thonk*

Tabitha felt the rock hit her head, but not knock her out, exactly as she had planned.

The half second had almost passed, she was rapidly speeding towards the floor, the next step in her operation was crucial.

The half second had passed, her legs were prepared to take the impact with the ground since they were already bent, and the rock was still touching her head, so all she had to do was angle her lumbar off in one direction to let the rock roll off her and onto the floor.

Tabitha saw that when Aminah had been swapped, her direction hadn't been changed and she was still facing in the direction opposite to Tabitha, this meant that for another second or so, Alfred was unable to see her, and she was unable to see Alfred. This was exactly what she needed.

Allowing the rock to painfully roll down her back, Tabitha jammed her hand into her pocket and yanked it out as quickly as possible to cause her phone to fall out. Tabitha was between it and Alfred, so he wouldn't notice until after they had returned to their original positions.

"Oooff!" Alfred mocked from behind her "Did that hurt? If you hadn't jumped, then you would have been painlessly ko'd."

Tabitha ignored him, it seemed that he hadn't noticed her voluntarily tossing her phone out of her pocket as he was turning around. The next part of the plan was to make it seem as though it was all going according to how Alfred predicted.

Tabitha slowly stood up and started to bend down and pick up the rock.

"Ah-ah-ah!" Alfred said, waving his finger and returning them to their original positions with his ability "only I get to use that trick!"

Tabitha turned around to face him confidently.

"I just noticed." She said, tilting her chin upwards slightly "you haven't asked about my power yet."

"Do I even need to?" Alfred chuckled "At best, you are a mere twinkling star compared to my lava flow; I have no reason to care or to worry, you can't do anything to me!"

"I suppose I may as well tell you. You've already lost, anyways" Tabitha said with incredible confidence "I can teleport, but only between reflective surfaces that I've touched before."

Alfred could not fathom where Tabitha was getting her newfound confidence, she just got hit over the head with a 20kg rock and was going to get hit once more! There was no reason for her to act as if she had such power. This alone infuriated Alfred, he would shine the brightest, it had to be him, because nobody else could compete with him or his ability.

"Why you…" Alfred bent down to pick up the rock and saw Tabitha's cell phone on the ground in his peripheral vision, ultimately thinking nothing of it "Learn your place! Your power isn't even cool like mine! That's so lame, teleporting between shiny stuff, how on Earth is that gonna help you beat me!?"

"Oh, I think you should reconsider that statement about my ability" Tabitha's voice came from behind him this time.

Alfred dropped the rock in a panic and it fell off to the side. How on Earth did she get over here? Tabitha was suddenly directly to the right of him, one foot on the phone that he saw on the floor earlier. Alfred hadn't even activated his ability, and there she was! Clearly, she used her ability, but what on Earth could she have touched?

The phone! She must have used the phone! But, what else did she touch? There was nothing even remotely reflective anywhere near where she once was, and both her hands were out of her pockets the entire time. How did the phone even get there? Had she used the time in which he was turned around to quickly drop her phone in a way I wouldn't see it? Nothing added up!

"...How…!?" Alfred slowly backed away in confusion "What else…the phone!?"

"hmm...I'm pretty sweaty right now," she looked at the palm of her hand momentarily before wiping it on her pants "aren't you?"

Alfred understood. Tabitha had sneakily left the phone near the rock when he had shuffled them the first time, so that when he reverted them, she'd have a means of getting over to him. Then, she used the reflectiveness of her sweat on her palm as the second surface and teleported to the phone. Alfred lost because Tabitha won the battle, both mentally and physically.

Tabitha punched him in the jaw, hard.

"Stars only appear dim because they're so far away. The second you get close to them, they shine more powerfully than any lava flow you could ever think of." Tabitha said as Alfred fell to the ground, unconscious.

"..." Tabitha stood still for a few seconds before returning to an idle position.

"Ye-he-heeeah that was so cool! I'll tell Aminah and Lucy later" Tabitha did a little dance before she picked up her phone "Time to get these guys out of here."

She picked up Alfred since he was the lightest in the class and walked to the bodies of the other students before dropping her phone next to them and walking off. As she walked, she wondered what their abilities were and how they could have been used, perhaps one of them could have beaten Alfred's under different circumstances.

Tabitha actually had no idea where she was going, now that she thought about it. But after less than thirty seconds of walking, she saw a door off in the distance. Once she carried Alfred through it, she noticed she was outside in the hallway of her school.

"That's convenient" she said to herself before touching the glass window on the door.

She had planned to get everyone out quickly by teleporting back and forth between the door's window and the phone she left inside, but when she re-entered, she found that the class was normal, no longer a scene from Star Wars Episode III.

Did this mean that Alfred had caused it, after all? If so, then why didn't the room turn back immediately? It didn't add up, she would be sure to snap Alfred back into consciousness later. Before that, she started messing with the bodies of the students inside, such as putting the hand of one guy under the shirt of another, or placing a girl's face on some dude's (or another girl's) crotch. She was having so much fun that she almost forgot to get Aminah and her phone out of there so they could all find Lucy and see if she was okay.

After a few minutes, she heard panicked shrills from inside the classroom as students began to wake up only to find breasts in their hands or crotches in their faces and proceed to get slapped or punched by the owners of said breasts and crotches.

Tabitha sat in front of Alfred, who was slowly waking up, and gently slapped him in the face to return him to consciousness.

"Hey, buddy" Tabitha continued to slap "c'mon get up, it's time for your quiz."

"Whha-hwa...? What happened?" Alfred was dazed "Tabitha?"

"Yes, that's my name. Now, tell me, why did you knock out all those students in that Star Wars set inside the math class" Tabitha just now realized how silly that question must have sounded.

"Unconscious? Star Wars?" Alfred looked away nervously, it seemed he was back to his usual, reserved self. "...uhhh….."

"Don't you remember? You were talking about brightness or something, and lava and stars?" Tabitha asked him sternly "and then you hit Aminah and I with a rock for reasons you couldn't explain back then?"

"I….I don't know… what you're talking about…" he spoke, still not looking her in the eye, just as the usual Alfred would "I didn't do any of that stuff…"

So, was it that once the room returned to normal, everyone who was inside it forgets all about it? No, that doesn't make any sense; if that were the case, then why does Tabitha remember all of this happening? It also clearly has nothing to do with exiting the room, since none of the chads with inflated egos were looking for Alfred to get back at him. It's almost like the entire room except Tabitha, and perhaps Aminah, had forgotten everything that happened with the Star Wars whatever.

That may mean that the holder of the ability that changes up the rooms was not inside the math class, and they could be anywhere. However, it could also be that the user was spying on them somehow, and using their ability to mess with them and keep them guessing.

Who could it be, and what might their purpose for doing all of this be?

Well, it was useless to just run around frantically knocking out everyone in sight, so, for the time being, Tabitha decided to get Lucy and Aminah back, so the three could sit down and come up with a plan.


	8. Chapter 8 - Comfort

Chapter 8

Lucy felt herself being shaken by something, and half-awoke from her peaceful slumber on the cold, hard floor.

"Hmmmmmmmm...don't wanna go to school…" Lucy turned over to face away from whatever was shaking her. "...Tired…"

"Lucy, c'mon now's not the time to be an adorable little baby." Lucy heard a voice that sounded like Tabitha's

"Hmmm…?" Lucy made half of an effort to open her eyes. "Tabitha…?"

"Oh, my god, you're adorable. Remind me to pinch those cheeks in a minute." Tabitha said "right now we need to sit down with Aminah and talk about what we're gonna do."

Lucy lazily sat up on the floor and stretched her arms above her head, ending it off with a long yawn.

"Where am I?" Lucy asked to herself

"Still at school, passed out on the floor like a drunk." Tabitha responded

"School…?" Lucy scanned her surroundings

"Yeah, remember? We got the superpowers, you ran off to your class, Aminah and I went to ours?" Tabitha tried to jog her memory

If Lucy was still at school, and Tabitha was perfectly recounting what had happened in her

supposed dream, then that meant…

"It wasn't a dream…?" Lucy asked Tabitha, eyes half closed "thhtthher...dinosaur?"

"Dream? Hell no, get your head out of the gutter we need to go back to Aminah!" Tabitha tried persuading her

Suddenly, Lucy got on her knees and began frantically clawing at the floor to move behind Tabitha.

"dinoSAUR!" Lucy yelled and pointed at the door, clutching to Tabitha's waist like her life depended on it "THERE'S DINO IN THERE DON'T GO!"

"...Di...dinosaurs...?" Tabitha turned to see Lucy's face contorted in fear as her eyes watered up "oh, right. I should check…"

Tabitha made an attempt to get up from the floor, but Lucy put both her arms around her waist in an attempt to stop her.

"DONT GOOOOO!" Lucy screamed, grabbing at Tabitha's clothes from below "THEY'LL EAT YOU!"

"Hey! Let me go! There's no dinosaurs in there!" Tabitha tried to push Lucy off her to no avail "I'm just gonna peek in and then close it!"

"I ALMOST DIIIIIEEEEEEEED!" tears rolled down Lucy's face and her speech was nearly incomprehensible between her sobs "I DON'T WANT YOU TO DIEEE!"

After a few seconds of dragging Lucy to the door, she placed her hand on the knob, and turned to open it. Tabitha could feel Lucy's grip around her tighten and the pressure of her face digging into the side of her leg.

"DONT GO!" Lucy begged.

Just as Tabitha had thought, the room was completely normal, save for around 20-odd students piled up in the corner.

"So I was right!" Tabitha celebrated in her head momentarily "Lucy, look! There's no dinosaurs, just a classroom, it's okay!"

Lucy's grasp of her tightened once more.

"It's fine, really! I promise it's all over now." Tabitha started gently rubbing Lucy's head in an attempt to comfort her "You can look."

Hesitantly, Lucy opened her eyes, fully prepared to see another ancient beast staring at her directly in the face. Much to her surprise, she saw only the classroom she was acquainted with; all the desks were there, the window was where it was supposed to be, and even the garbage posters that freshmen had created hung proudly above the blackboard.

"See, I told you!" Tabitha patted her on the head softly

"B..b-but…" Lucy let go of Tabitha and crawled towards the door on her hands and knees. "I saw…"

"Once we sit down with Aminah, I'll explain what I think might be causing this." Tabitha reassured her.

Lucy poked her head inside the doorframe and looked around nervously. Seeing no dinosaurs or out-of-place plantlife gave her the confidence to stand up. She turned her head to look at Tabitha with a confused look, the kind that a dog would give its owner after someone had shown it a magic trick.

"But…Where are the dinosaurs?" Lucy fully entered the room, flinging her head around wildly in search of something that would justify her previous actions. "There were like three of them! And then I panicked, and a kid from my class showed up, and he was gonna punch me or something so I did my bearing thing accidentally and he passed out...!"

"I'll explain in a bit, c'mon, I don't want Aminah to miss this" Tabitha said, urging her to go along

"...and then I ran all the way to this door and I stepped outside and then I passed out and I thought it was a dream! But it was too realistic for a dream and I woke up on the floor, and I still think I can do my bearing thing, so…!" Lucy's breathing began to accelerate

"Calm down, LuLu!" Tabitha grabbed her hands and sat her down on the floor again "Like I said, I think I know what's going on here, so let's get back to Aminah and figure this out together, okay?"

"I'm scared…" Lucy said, barely above a whisper. Lucy got back on her knees and crawled towards Tabitha to try and hug her.

"It's okay, I'm scared too." Tabitha said, accepting the hug. "You can count on me, it'll all be okay."

"*sniff*...okay." Lucy tightened her hug for a second.

"Let's go find Aminah. "Tabitha stood up and pulled Lucy along with her.

"Yea…" Lucy was starting to calm down.

The two got up and began to walk down the hall in the direction of Tabitha and Aminah's classroom. Every time they walked past a door, Lucy would subconsciously gravitate towards Tabitha, just another testament to how truly terrified she must have been in that room. Tabitha decided it would be best not to pry into it for now.

Now that she thought about it, Tabitha was always pretty good with calming Lucy down. In the many times she and Aminah visited her house, she noticed that Lucy's parents were still not too good at keeping her emotions in check, often trying to appease her with material things such as a stuffed animal or some food. Perhaps that was why Tabitha never noticed Lucy cling to her parents for too long, even in times of need.

Lucy had always been afraid of small, otherwise innocent things, like balloons popping, slightly unsettling dolls, or even harmless jumpscares used as pranks in videos. Most of the time, it was up to Tabitha to keep Lucy feeling safe; even if she herself was scared of what was to come, she put on a brave face to help her friend out. Hell, Tabitha has attended all of Lucy's vaccinations, and Lucy all of hers. Their friendship was something that the two held close to their hearts.

Even though Lucy's almost childish fears and habits were almost like addictive substances to Tabitha, taking into account the present situation, it was unlikely that Lucy would be able to handle it. Tabitha was less worried about Aminah, her curiosity overpowered her fear, so she would probably be alright for any other fights they'd have to partake in.

Tabitha was also unsure that she could keep a brave face on for the two of them all the time. All of these bizarre abilities, which on their own could be rather devastating, would grow even more terrifying if combined, and they still had no real idea as to what was causing the room-changing phenomenon.

"It looks like Aminah is starting to wake up." Tabitha pointed out

Aminah was still on the floor, curled up like a baby and starting to wiggle about as she realized how uncomfortable the floor was.

"What happened in your class?" Lucy asked Tabitha, Lucy looked more relaxed and calm now.

"We had to fight" Tabitha sat down next to Aminah "Alfred's ability let him swap places with people, so he held a rock above his head and let us catch it with ours."

"So...is Aminah alright?" Lucy kneeled down beside Aminah and lifted her head onto her lap to keep her comfortable

"She should be waking up any minute now, the rock wasn't too heavy." Tabitha scooched over to Lucy and Aminah

Before Lucy could realize it, Tabitha was already behind her, resting her weight on Lucy's back and hands pinching and pulling her cheeks once more like it was just the common practice after sitting down.

"*sigh*... sit down, pinch Lucy's cheeks, huh?" Lucy said, once again her normal self

"It's my nicotine." Tabitha said casually

"Hehe" Tabitha and Lucy heard a small giggle from below "to anyone watching, this looks almost like a cute romantic quirk between the two of you."

"Oh, come on. You know it's not like that, Aminah" Tabitha said, getting creative with her cheek-massages. "It's just pure fun."

Aminah sat up in front of the two.

"Are you okay?" Lucy said, though it came out more like "aaugh yu ou kweyy" thanks to Tabitha

"Yeah, I ju-" Aminah froze "My…"

"...?" the two other girls were confused

"My...ability." Aminah stared intently at the floor. "I...can't…"

"Your ability?" Tabitha stopped pinching

Suddenly, Aminah ran inside the math classroom that she and Tabitha were supposed to be taking.

"...what?" Lucy said

"If she's constipated I doubt she'll find what she needs in there." Tabitha resumed pinching

"...ew." Lucy responded

"It's a joke! Not even Aminah would crap in a classroom." Tabitha continued

Aminah came back outside with a scrap piece of paper, likely from the recycling bin, in hand. Once she had fully returned and kneeled down in front of them, she began to fold it at a pace that the others could barely keep up with. After two seconds, it was a paper airplane, she threw it across the hallway and it nosedived directly into the ground with an unsatisfying *piff*.

Aminah looked them in the eye, an expression of horror overcame her.

"...My ability…" she started, faceplanting into Lucy's lap. "It's gone."


	9. Chapter 9 - Recovery

Chapter 9

"...Gone…?" Lucy asked, confused.

"What do you mean, gone?" Tabitha peered over Lucy's shoulder.

"I...I-I can't use it..." Aminah buried her face into Lucy's lap, using her hands to grip onto her legs "I can feel it, paper won't follow my commands anymore."

"...A...Are you sure?" Lucy asked as Aminah began to tremble.

Lucy could feel a liquid slowly stream down her thighs and Aminah's hands tighten. Aminah was crying, quiet sobs started coming from Lucy's lap.

"H-hey, it'll be okay." Tabitha moved her hands from Lucy's cheeks down to her stomach and leaned forward to get a better view of Aminah "I'm sure you just think you can't because you passed out."

Actually, come to think of it, Lucy had passed out as well, but she retained her ability. Tabitha hadn't seen Lucy use her ability, but she remembered that Lucy stated that she could still use it in one of her panic attacks from earlier.

'What's going on?' the two thought to themselves in unison.

"I...can't…" Aminah crawled up Lucy's torso and stuffed her head into the shoulder that Aminah wasn't occupying before letting out some more tears "I…*sniff*...I can feel it…"

Aside from the general discomfort that came with being sandwiched by two people, Lucy felt bad for Aminah. She wanted to restore her ability. Not only that, Lucy also wanted to restore her pride, she would be the one to rescue and help someone, rather than be helped out herself.

"Well…" Lucy began "Why don't we just get it back?"

Suddenly, Aminah stopped crying.

"...How…?" She whispered.

"Uhhh…" Lucy hadn't thought this far, to be completely honest.

"Oh! I know!" Tabitha interrupted "We can play the music again!"

"B…*sniff*...but then…you'll have to feel all awful and sweaty again…" Aminah pulled back to look at the two in the face.

"We know." Tabitha said.

"Yeah, we don't mind" Lucy put on a genuine smile.

Aminah began to tear up once again, this time with a look of gratitude on her face.

"Y..you mean it…*sniff*?" Aminah asked "You'd do that…*sniff*...for me?

They nodded. With that, Aminah wrapped her arms around both of them and squeezed tight, she continually thanked them between the sniffles of her soft crying. After a few minutes of Lucy being squashed by her overly-touchy friends, the three of them got up. Aminah had calmed down and was no longer crying, but her face was red and her cheeks were puffed up, Lucy almost wanted to pinch them a bit, just to see what the big fuss about her own cheeks was about.

"So...how exactly are we gonna play the song back?" Aminah asked "Last time, it had a squealing sound in it."

"Don't worry, I've got it under control," Tabitha began walking in the direction of the amphitheatre "the audio file should still be in the system somewhere, it won't take too long to find it."

Lucy decided to lift the mood further by teasing Tabitha and being sarcastic.

"If anyone can do it, it's you," Lucy joked as she and Aminah tailed her "O tech savvy one!"

"Hey, you stop! It's been four years and my computer hasn't even once stopped working properly!" Tabitha said "It's like a gerbil! Except it doesn't die after four years."

She took the bait, that was a particularly bad comeback that just made the two giggle harder.

"If it's so good, then why do you randomly leave our calls, huh?" Aminah teased "The internet's never that bad when we go do your house!"

"Du-it's-uh-be...nothing…" Tabitha said, frustrated at her utter defeat.

"Hey, check this out" Lucy whispered to Aminah.

Lucy stopped and placed her hand on the floor to create a bearing on the same plane as the floor. It worked, and she used that bearing to detach a section of the floor under Tabitha's feet and used it to turn her around. Tabitha's eyes were closed in displeasure, but on her face was the most adorably angry pout that either Lucy or Aminah had ever seen. After realizing that she had been turned around, she opened her eyes in confusion, and in front of her were the extremely smug Aminah and Lucy giggling like middle schoolers at dick jokes.

"Oh my god, stop it!" Tabitha's pout became even more intense and her face turned a bright red "You're mean."

They continued giggling, which only further upset Tabitha. Tabitha quickly walked behind Lucy and wrapped her arms around her shoulders to pinch at her cheeks once more. Aminah saw that she still had a red face and pouty lips.

"...Go…" Tabitha said quietly, like an angry 8 year old forced to admit defeat "…"

Aminah giggled and walked ahead, Lucy and Tabitha followed. Before they could even notice how much they had walked, they arrived at the amphitheatre. The three girls walked behind the recovered Tabitha's lead to the control that handled everything. It was up above the stage and behind all of the seats so that nobody in the audience could see it without craning their heads. While Tabitha was fiddling with the computer, Lucy looked out onto the stage. She had never seen it to empty, it felt almost surreal.

Then, she noticed it wasn't empty. Onstage, near the right side, she saw a figure and heard a voice. The amphitheatre was empty, so it was possible to pick up snippets of what the figure was saying.

It was the businessman from the presentation. What was he doing here?

"[incoherent] … going better than expected, … [incoherent] … remarkable development … [incoherent] … such a short time … [incoherent]" he spoke into his phone complacently, he must not have been aware that Lucy was listening. "... may be our best branch so far … [incoherent] … see soon enough … [incoherent]".

He put his phone back in his pocket and stomped his foot on the ground before taking a step backwards.

Then, the floor he stomped on rose upwards in a rectangular prism. It dinged, and the section facing the businessman opened like a sliding door to reveal a bright yellow light. He stepped inside it, the doors slid closed, and the rectangular prism lowered itself into the floor once again.

"I just saw a guy in a suit summon an elevator to hell…" Lucy said to herself in disbelief

"Did you say that you saw a guy as hot as hell!?" Aminah appeared out of nowhere and squinted at the amphitheatre in hopes of finding an attractive, preferably chest-haired, man to stare at.

"No, no." Lucy held back her laughter at the sudden change in character "the businessman from before, who played the Vivaldi of death..."

"Oh…" Aminah sounded disappointed "...did he have chest hair?"

"Alright, I found it, I'm gonna hit play, so lie down on the floor and prepare to sweat!" Tabitha interrupted their insightful and philosophical conversation.

"Maybe we should have gone back to the locker rooms to get our other clothes back…" Lucy suggested, a bit too late.

"We'll be fine, don't worry." Tabitha said as the Vivaldi piece began to play. "Alright, here we go!"


	10. Chapter 10 - Maudify (Part 1)

Chapter 10

Approximately thirty minutes later, the girls found themselves lying on the floor, drenched in sweat yet again.

"Uuwaaahh" Lucy verbalized her exhaustion.

"Are you guys alri-" Tabitha was interrupted by Aminah

Before Tabitha could even finish her question, Aminah was stumbling towards a pencil on the floor, breathing heavily.

"Di...hahh...you get...hhahh...your power…hheahh...back...?" Lucy attempted to ask, sitting up

Tabitha and Lucy heard the thump of Aminah's body hitting the floor, a few seconds later, she threw her right arm up, in it was a piece of paper.

"I...hhahhh...hhuhhh...I...did...hheeahhh….hhahhh...it…!" Aminah said, her tone not reflective of her mental state.

It worked. Aminah had gotten her power back. Their trip back to the amphitheatre had been worth it after all. That being said, a dark presence occupied the back of Lucy's mind. The businessman from this morning, in particular what he was talking about on the phone. Branch? Development? Overlooking the fact that he essentially gave them superpowers with music, why would he do such a thing? Could it be that, somehow, this was merely a single experiment in a long chain? His speech seemed to suggest it, though Lucy didn't have enough information to take that farther than mere hyperbolic assumption.

As much as Lucy wanted to dismiss his phone call as pure adult-gibberish, she had the dull but persistent feeling that her, Tabitha, Aminah, and maybe others would reencounter him sooner rather than later.

"It's not that bad...hhah...this time, huh?" Tabitha asked to nobody in particular "I only feel like I took 15 math tests in a row instead of 20."

"Hhah…yeah…" Lucy agreed, unsteadily standing up and walking towards Aminah, who was face up and still panting heavily with her eyes shut "I think Aminah is still not done taking hers."

"Maybe she thought of chest hair again?" Tabitha unhelpfully suggested

"Perhaps, she thought of chest hair taking 20 math tests in a row?" Lucy played along sarcastically.

"Or 20 individual chest hairs taking a single math test collectively?" Tabitha leaned against the wall.

"Aminah, comments?" Lucy asked, in a tone far too serious for what she was asking.

"Hhahh...how'd'ja'know...hhah…?" Aminah sat up, recovering slowly.

After a few more minutes of similarly braindead banter to allow Aminah to catch her breath and rest up mentally, the girls decided to address the elephant in the room.

"Okay, but LuLu," Tabitha asked, dead serious "what DO you jerk off too?"

"That isn't even close to what we were talking about." Lucy put on a face that one would put on when seeing a mouse rummage through leftovers.

"In all seriousness, we need to find a way to stop all these weird occurrences." Tabitha got back on topic "what, with the rooms becoming film sets, everyone suddenly becoming bipolar, memory loss."

"Well, it's obviously an ability at work," Lucy added "but how do we find out who it is? We can't just run around knocking people out to see if it works."

"Actually, we might not even have to try and find a culprit." Tabitha said .

"What do you mean?" Aminah asked.

"Think about it. Abilities go away when you get knocked out, and…" Tabitha stopped mid-thought "no wait, that makes no sense."

"It couldn't have been Alfred's ability, his was the shuffle thing." Lucy continued her idea "so far, everyone's had one ability."

"What's to stop someone from getting two?" Aminah asked "I can turn things into paper and turn paper into things, those are different, just kind of similar."

"Yeah, but they're just two sides of the same coin." Tabitha countered "Al can't have both the shuffle and the room changing aggressiveness thing, they're too fundamentally different."

"..."

"That, and if the whole thing truly had stopped, wouldn't there be people walking around here trying to get their power back?" Tabitha pointed out.

"Damn, you're right…" Lucy confirmed.

"It's still a possibility, though." Aminah continued "It wouldn't hurt to check just one room."

"It'd probably hurt for the people inside the room." Tabitha said.

"Well...why don't we check a room with less people?" Aminah asked "I heard from Diana that her music class only has three people in it."

Lucy had almost forgotten that she may need to engage in another brawl with classmates. Faced with this very real possibility, she began to instinctively tense up. She turned to Tabitha for comfort and to plead that they not return to any fighting.

"I don't know, I'd rather not have to fight again…" Tabitha said.

Then, something inside Lucy clicked. Perhaps it was the realization that her power could be used to defend her, if the situation call for it. It could also be that her next encounter would probably be with Tabitha and Aminah there to help her. But it may have been that when Lucy looked at Tabitha and Aminah, her two best friends, she saw fortitude and determination written in their postures, facial expressions, and body language. More than likely, this click was caused by a combination of all three of those factors synchronizing in her brain.

That being said, this realization did not stop Lucy from being scared of any future encounters. All that the click had done was made her see that the rock-solid foundation of their friendship could support monumental weight.

This epiphany, in the end, came from her newfound ability to create ball bearings on surfaces. For the very first time in her life, Lucy was capable of defending herself. Hell, she might not even need Tabitha and Aminah to hold her own.

"...LuLu?" Tabitha asked, snapping Lucy back into reality

"Y-yeah?" she asked, taken aback

"I asked you if you were okay with going into the music room to test out Aminah's theory, are you alright with it?" Tabitha asked, concern plastered all over her face

"Uhh…" Lucy hesitated, she herself was unsure why "Yeah, I'll be okay."

"Looks like that settles it!" Aminah said eagerly "Let's go."

The girls got up, feeling (for the most part) refreshed and ready, and headed for the music room. From the few conversations that Lucy had with Diana, she seemed like an approachable, outgoing, and likeable person. Though, if the last time they entered a classroom was anything to go by, they might as well throw that all out the window.

A few minutes later, they arrived at the door of the music room. Nothing could be heard coming from it, and the small window that lets one peer into the room was completely black, only adding to the uneasy atmosphere.

"Let's go?" Aminah said, hovering closer to the door.

Tabitha and Lucy exchanged worried looks, but walked forwards anyways. Aminah opened the door and walked inside, far too excited; Lucy and Tabitha followed.

Upon entering, they were hit with a wave of hot air and bright light, the change in the environment was so drastic that it caused Lucy to stumble backwards momentarily. Once their eyes adjusted, they were greeted with an ocean of orange. It was a desert, hot, dry, and unforgiving.

"Oh, Jesus." Tabitha shielded herself from the heat. "Just when the sweat was starting to dry off, too."

"What are you doing here?" the girls heard a voice from off to their right.

Diana stood proudly around 10 meters away, around 5 meters behind her were the bodies of the two other classmates that made up the music classroom. Her long, yellow hair rested at her back, and her stance was that of a parent looking down upon an ill-raised child not of their blood. There was no wind to speak of to cause her hair or p.e. Clothing to move, creating an illusion that time had somehow stopped.

"Wh-what's your ability!?" Lucy heard Aminah ask loudly

"You haven't even answered my question," Diana said, still motionless "yet you expect me to answer yours?"

"We're here to test a theory," Tabitha responded "We got what we came for, so how do we get out of here?"

It was true, Tabitha's hypothesis was correct. Alfred was not the source of this room-altering, personality-changing ability. Though their idea was confirmed, this only reset them back to square one; they still had no idea who was doing this or why.

"Leave? I can't let you do that" Diana turned her head off to the left "you might interfere with Mr. Ethan Hunt."

Confused, the girls looked in the direction Diana was facing. It was the Burj Khalifa, the gigantic skyscraper in the equally gigantic city of Dubai. Tabitha noticed Lucy beginning to look around nervously, and Aminah repeated her question.

"Your ability!?" Aminah asked once again, now more quietly

"Why don't you try to knock me out and find out?" Diana chuckled, turning to face them once more.

Aminah accepted the challenge instantly. She ran for a small bush off to the side and cupped it with her hands. It turned into paper and she held it up for all to see.

"THIS is my ability!" Aminah yelled proudly "Paper!"

It probably sounded a lot cooler in her head. Realizing her goofy demeanor, she quickly took action, and sprinted for Diana. Lucy and Tabitha could only watch as their once-calm friend charged at an acquaintance with malicious intent, it was very unlike her. Tabitha tried to stop her, but it was clear that no amount of reason would break through Aminah's current motivation, to knock out Diana and show off her power.

"Wait!" Lucy suddenly piped in.

Aminah took the paper and wrapped it around her right hand, like a glove. The next thing they knew, she was wearing a red boxing mitt, still charging at Diana.

"Not bad." Diana admitted absent-mindedly "Too bad it won't help you."

Tabitha noticed something was wrong. Though Aminah wasn't particularly muscular, she weighed a bit more than the average girl, and was certainly capable of packing a decent blow, especially one backed up by a running start and a boxing glove. Diana was far too complacent for anyone in her position, she made no attempt to dodge or brace herself, and let Aminah charge at her full force. Was her ability so powerful that it would completely negate the effects of a punch to the face?

"Aminah, stop!" Tabitha yelled, they needed to figure out her ability from a safe distance before attacking.

"Take this!" Aminah punched her in the jaw, hard

*Boing*

Boing? Fists don't go boing, they go *smack* or even *pow* like in comic books, *boing* certainly wasn't the noise that any of them expected.

Aminah was in the air, flying backwards, almost as if the force from her punch had hit a trampoline.

"I told you, it wouldn't help." Diana turned to face her "My ability…"

Aminah hit the sand, quickly getting back on her feet. What was this ability? Lucy, Tabitha and Aminah knew almost nothing about it. Aminah's attack had no effect, she literally bounced off of Diana and flew back over three meters. With this, Tabitha realized that they may not be able to win this fight.

"...is invincible!" Diana concluded.


	11. Chapter 11 - Miranda and Felicity

Chapter 11

Attachments.

They represent a fondness for an object or a person. They are among the purest emotions a human can experience, they do no harm nor good. One could argue that excessive attachments may cause a person to develop an obsession, which would then spiral out of control and lead into much more drastic situations. That being said, the obsession in question is only a result of the attachment and a person's own personality mixing in an unhealthy way, the attachment itself will do nothing unless a person turns that attachment into a source of destruction.

They come in many different forms: love or respect for a person, a hobby, sympathy towards someone, or even a guilty pleasure. Such examples may include: being a fan of a particular artist's music, golf, collecting, or watching silly television shows. What causes someone to become attached to something? The answer to that cannot be expressed in words since everyone likes different things for different reasons.

They are nothing to truly be ashamed of and nothing to boast about, they are akin to personality traits. When describing someone, aside from physical appearance and personality, a unique quirk may be used to further differentiate them from others. In the end, what makes up a person is determined by these factors of appearance, personality, and tastes.

As long as they are kept in check, attachments are harmless, and may even promote a healthy lifestyle.

Should they run amok, it is up to the individual to control him or herself.

"W-Why'd you knock them out?" Felicity asked the student standing before her.

"I already told you!" he yelled, frustrated "They were gonna interfere!"

"Interfere with what!?" Miranda asked.

"With James Bond!" he was losing his temper "If they're unconscious, they can't mess it up! Then it'll all be okay!"

"Felicity, are you sure you can't turn it off?" Miranda looked over at her.

"N-no! It just stays on!" she shuddered.

Miranda and Felicity were in a bit of a pinch. Around 10 minutes after waking up from their sweaty slumber in the amphitheatre, Felicity started to have a small panic attack. It was as if she was witnessing dozens upon dozens of people mercilessly clobber each other until they went unconscious

"Where's the door, you!" Miranda didn't know the boy's name. She had just enrolled into school today, after all.

"Hell if I know, good luck finding it with all these buildings" he gestured lazily to the skyscrapers that surrounded him

"Let us go!" Felicity began to beg "We won't interfere!"

"Nope." he replied sternly "how do I know you're not lying"

"Why on earth would we! Look at the situation we're in" Miranda took charge

"How about you come over here, we fight, and whoever stays standing last wins?" he taunted

Frankly, Miranda was just about sick of this guy. They'd never even met, and he already assumed he was superior just because of his "colorizer" ability as he put it? It wasn't even a powerful one, all he could do was change the color of whatever he touched.

"Felicity…" Miranda said "stay here, I'm gonna show this guy something neat."

Then, before she could get close to him, he vanished. His ability let him change the color of whatever he touched to whatever he wanted, even to transparent. All he had to do was touch his skin and clothing, and he became practically invisible.

"Oh no, that's not working this time!" Miranda stopped in her tracks and used her ability.

The world around her spun. Literally. It rotated around twenty degrees clockwise, with the center being her center of mass, just under her bellybutton, and stopped on a dime.

*Thud* "Oof!" Miranda heard a noise from in front of her.

She kicked with all her might at the air where it came from, her foot made solid contact with something soft. Less than a second later, the boy from earlier had materialized from the air. He was unconscious.

"Mi-Miranda! Are you okay!?" Felicity got up and ran to her

"Yeah, I'm fine, but I think my shoe got dented…" Miranda inspected her shoe.

"I think we can leave now, It's like I'm being pulled towards that door over there." Felicity pointed at a door half a block away.

They were standing in the middle of a highway. It was completely empty, devoid of both people and cars. Around the highway were many skyscrapers, that were also entirely empty. All of the traffic lights and electronics worked perfectly. This gave their location an intense eeriness that both Miranda and Felicity wanted no part of.

"Yeah, I feel it too." Miranda looked at the small door's outline.

She also felt herself drawn to it, it seemed to call out to her, it almost suggested that their escape from this ghost town would be behind the door. After making the short trip to the door, they stepped outside, and found themselves in the hallway of the school Miranda had just enrolled in.

"Was that your power?" Miranda asked Felicity.

"I...guess?" she replied.

"..." Miranda began to think.

How ludicrous was this concept? She had just enrolled into a new school, was instantly surrounded by dozens because of her fiddler, and suddenly she and everyone around her has some superpower? It was so ridiculous it seemed to almost be out of a comic book. Maybe if she found other people who didn't all try to beat her up, they could figure something out. Perhaps that girl she made eye contact with earlier might know what's going on.

"D...did you have to kick that guy?" Felicity asked her nervously

"Who? Oh, the invisible dude." Miranda looked the other way "well, he tried to hurt us."

"Oh, okay" Felicity looked at the floor

"Do you remember that girl with the sideways ponytail from earlier?" Miranda asked

"You mean Lucy?" Felicity began "what about her?"

"Something tells me she could help us out." Miranda looked down the hallways

"What makes you say that?" Felicity was confused

"I don't know, I just feel like we might be connected." she took out her fiddler and looked at it "If that makes any sense"

"How are we gonna find her?" Felicity asks

"...I havent thought that far ahead yet, haha." Miranda laughed nervously "oops"

"Let's just walk around a bit, maybe we'll get lucky and bump into her" Felicity walked off, Miranda trailed behind.


	12. Chapter 12 - Maudify (Part 2)

Chapter 12

Despite there being no walls in the desert, Lucy, Tabitha and Aminah sure felt like they had their backs up to one.

"I'll tell you what." Diana started casually "Even though I suddenly feel an urge to pummel you all, I wouldn't be able to sleep too well with that on my conscience."

The three girls were tense, Aminah and Lucy were almost shaking, but for different reasons.

"So why don't I just let you leave, and then everyone will be happy" Diana suggested "well, except for the other music class people, but they're down already, so no need to worry."

Diana was actually about to leave the room. Once she had taken care of the other students and teacher, she felt something pulling her towards it in the distance, it felt like some sort of portal or gateway, she assumed it was the way out. Directly after knocking the others out, she no longer had a desire to punch anyone, and felt rather bad for having done something like that without even thinking. Before Diana could leave, however, these three walked in, which for some reason reactivated her intense drive to fight.

"Diana, we need to ask y-" Tabitha began, but was interrupted.

"No!" Aminah cried out "We started this fight, and we're gonna finish it!"

"..." Tabitha looked at her with confusion "Hold on, Aminah, this might be our only chance to-"

"So that's how it's gonna be then, huh?" Diana looked down and placed her hand on her hip "I didn't want it to end like this...well, actually I kind of did."

Aminah cupped some sand in her hands and turned it into an a-4 piece of paper. She rapidly folded it into what appeared to be a paper airplane and threw it in Diana's direction.

The plane approached her rapidly, it was no longer made of paper, in fact it looked identical to the Northrop Grumman B-2 Spirit that was used during the Cold War by the Americans, just around the size of a paper airplane.

Diana responded by picking up her own clump of sand and cupping it in her left hand. She began to swing her right hand over the pile on her left outwards just like how a rich buffoon might throw money at a strip club while yelling "make it rain".

Just before Diana could complete the motion, the miniature B-2 nosedived straight down.

*BOOM*

The sound of a shotgun came from Diana's hands, and all the sand in her left hand was now in the air, flying at three times the speed of sound. Diana had modified the sound of hand rubbing against sand into that of a bullet going off, effectively turning her 'make it rain' motion into a shotgun.

Though Aminah and the B-2 had expected some manner of direct attack the second Diana picked up the sand, they were not prepared for her to shoot tiny sand particles at supersonic speeds at it.

That being said, the nosedive paid off. Though the B-2 was less than a meter above the ground, it still flew at her at around 5 meters per second and would reach her in less than half a second at this rate. The B-2 prepared its attack

Diana kicked up some sand at the plane. *SHWOOM* it went. Suddenly, there was a 2m tall and 8m wide tsunami between the B-2 and Diana.

It was Aminah's turn now. She dug her right hand into the sand and pulled forwards as hard as she could before slapping the massive clump in her right hand with her left. For a brief second, a piece of paper existed between her hands, and in that moment, Aminah closed both of her hands together to turn the paper into a crumpled up ball. Still crouching down, she removed her left hand and continued the pulling motion with her right.

A baseball flew through the air from Aminah's hand towards the B-2 and the impending tsunami. This may be Aminah's only hope at landing a hit on her. The elaborate plan she had created was thought up of as things went along, Aminah relied purely on her ingenuity and resourcefulness to carry her, but without a doubt, if this attack missed, Diana would attack her, possibly with something even more dangerous than the sand-bullets, with the intent to finish her off. Aminah would not lose her powers again.

The baseball was less than a centimeter above the B-2 and slightly ahead, flying around three times as fast, and the tsunami was less than thirty centimeters from the nose of the plane.

The B-2 accelerated and pulled up slightly.

Aminah was banking on the fact that a baseball is much more dense than water, and capable of displacing it with ease, as well as the fact that the tsunami could not be deeper than half a meter thanks to its position relative to Diana and the B-2/baseball.

*CRASHH* the bomber and baseball had been absorbed by the wave.

Diana had won, all she had to do now was flick sand at Aminah and the others, and then she could return to the blissful state of not wanting to fight anymore.

Then, Diana heard a noise coming from the still-present tsunami.

*CRASH*

The source: a baseball. Directly behind it: a small B-2 bomber that had been created from paper that was once sand.

Diana had no time to react, the ball was still moving at over 10 meters per second directly towards her stomach, and the bomber was now climbing and showing her it's open hatch containing a bomb the size of a grain of rice.

Diana was faced with a troubling situation. Heading towards her stomach was a baseball that, though not enough to knock her out, would send her into a daze. Heading towards her face was a bomb the size of a grain of rice; it would likely knock her out. Aminah's plan was use the baseball as a diversion and as a means of guaranteeing that her main attack would connect. Diana and Aminah had talked quite a bit before, but never would Diana have expected that she'd be capable of such a cunning and self-correcting plan.

If she tried to stop the baseball, the bomb would hit her, knocking her out.

If she tried to stop the bomb, the baseball would hit her in the stomach, causing her to lean forwards in pain and run her forehead straight into the bomb.

In both scenarios, she'd get hit by the bomb, Aminah was confident that she had outsmarted her opponent. Though she could not see her because of the tsunami that was slowly dying out, Diana's only option was to take the bomb and admit defeat.

*inaudible*...*BAM* something behind the wave went. That had done it. Aminah was victorious.

Looking at the top of the gradually receding wave, she saw the bomber fly directly up for a brief second before disappearing. It had accomplished the task it set out to do, to hit Diana with a bomb, and vanished with a sense of fulfillment coursing through its thin pipes.

A sense of relief came over her, she had just used her own powers to defend herself and her friends, all by herself. She looked over to Tabitha and Lucy, expecting them to applaud her or congratulate her on what she did, Tabitha in particular, since Aminah passed out basically instantly in their first encounter.

But, she didn't see the smiling faces of her two best friends. Instead, she saw them looking at the spot where Diana is with deep concern on their faces.

Why would they look concerned? Aminah had just won. She dropped a tiny bomb on her head with the force of a firecracker, more than enough to knock someone out.

Aminah heard the sound of the tsunami dying out, with small droplets hitting her lower legs and feet. She turned her head, hoping to see an unconscious Diana on the sand next to a crumpled piece of paper.

"It was a good try, I'll give you that" a voice said.

Aminah saw Diana.

"Anyone but me and I'm sure you'd have gotten your way." Diana spoke "Weren't you listening when I said my ability was invincible?"

Diana had avoided the attack. Well, not really. Faced with two unfavorable options, Diana chose the one that would have the least negative repercussions. In hindsight, her method was rather simple. She turned the *SLAM* of a baseball hitting a stomach into a *BOING* of a baseball hitting a trampoline. The reason it was inaudible is due in part to the fact that the force of the impact was rather small thanks to the ball's low momentum, and in part because there was a 2-meter tall tsunami that was not only effective at insulating sound, but also could generate a thunderous *SWOOSH* as it carried water forwards.

From there, the recoil of the collision sent Diana stumbling backwards, causing the bomb to land on the sand with a *BAM* as it exploded.

Aminah's plan had not worked. Once again, Diana's ability was more capable than her own. Aminah heard Tabitha running towards her.

"How kind of you, to go nearer to Aminah so I get a better shot at both of you" Diana taunted "I appreciate it, really."

Tabitha was getting angry with Diana's stuck up attitude.

"Though it won't help you much..." Diana crouched down and started slowly rubbing her hands on the sand "...I sure hope you brought water bottles!"

*sizzle* the sand went. Not just around Diana's hands, but everywhere. The air around them was beginning to distort like it does over a campfire. Their lungs and skin began to heat up, and their sweating intensified.

"Good luck making anything with sand you can't even touch!" Diana began laughing at her own power.

Diana had heated up the sand to the point where it could no longer be touched, save for her own hands since they were immune to the effects of the power. With the ground so hot, none of them could touch it, so Aminah couldn't make any paper from the sand, and it was only a matter of time before she and the others passed out.

"Are you stupid!?" Tabitha yelled at her "The temperature will knock you out too!"

"It's only my right hand doing the heating!" she responded "My left hand's making a whoosh to blow cool air all over my body!"

Diana could not be in a more advantageous position. She was heating up the air around the girls while cooling the air around her own. It was only a matter of time before the heat got unbearable and they'd pass out. Even if she needed water, she could put sand in her mouth and touch it with her left hand to turn it into the life-bringing liquid, whereas Lucy, Tabitha, and Aminah could not.

"HAHAHA!" Diana laughed menacingly "Invincible, I tell you!"

"Don't worry Aminah," Tabitha looked at her with a small but confident smile. "We'll think of something!"


	13. Chapter 13 - Maudify (part 3)

Chapter 13

Lucy was in a panic. Her knees were trembling, her breathing ragged not just from the hot air around her, but also from the overwhelming disadvantage that she and her friends were at. The last time she was up against someone with powers like hers, she became incapable of moving, and resorted to screaming like a baby at a vaccination and sheer reflexes and instinct to knock out her opponent.

This time, she wasn't going to let her fear shut her down. How could she when her friends were fearlessly standing up to a near-invincible power? Lucy had to help, she had to redeem herself.

But, what could she do?

Looking at what she had to work with, it was really just sand with the occasional bush. She bent down to touch the sand to see how her bearings would interact with them, only to regret her decision after feeling how hot the sand had gotten.

How was she supposed to make bearings on the sand if she can't touch it? She had just watched Aminah's cunning plan fall to pieces with the kick of some sand. Even if Lucy were to have control over the sand with her bearings, how was she supposed to attack someone who could just negate all forms of aggression?

She had to help. She couldn't let her friends lose their power and memories, who else would stop whoever's doing all of this then? Lucy took off her shirt and began frantically using it to fan the sand near her feet, maybe then it would cool down enough for her to touch it and stick a bearing on it, to help in whatever way she could. The hot air began to sting her bare skin without the protection of her shirt, and she began to sweat harder than she ever had before.

"Hhahh!" Lucy was now panting like she had run a marathon at world record pace, but she did not let up her fanning.

She would protect her friends, because without them, she'd be lost.

"Lucy, what are you do-" Tabitha began to yell at her friend for being weird, but something stopped her "..."

"Is your friend okay?" Diana asked "shouldn't she be fanning herself?"

"..." the two said nothing.

"She's not an exhebitionist or a perv or anything like that, is she?" Diana continued.

"Aminah, I have an idea, listen carefully..." Tabitha whispered into her ear, ignoring Diana.

"Theyre ignoring me…" Diana mumbled to herself "well, I doubt they'll even be conscious in a few minutes."

Meanwhile, Lucy was on the brink of passing out, fanning the ground shirtless in a hotter-than-average desert took its toll on her much quicker than she had anticipated. She dropped the shirt on the sand, defeated, and used it to kneel onto so she wouldn't touch the floor directly.

Then, it came back to her. The feeling that she got before while touching something, her ability - the bearings - they spoke to her.

Her shirt.

Of course! Her shirt! How did she not see it before? She could put bearings on her shirt, then she might be able to do something! She tried to place a bearing on between her shirt and the sand, to see what would happen.

The bearing appeared. She could do it! She had no clue what she could do with a sand bearing, but it had to do something, right? She willed the bearing to spin, fast. Her shirt was beginning to get hot from touching the ground, but Lucy barely noticed. She heard a loud grinding sound coming from the underside of her shirt, she lifted it up to investigate. Much to her dismay, the bearing that was on the shirt was attached to a bunch of sand. The grinding was caused by the sand on the bearing rubbing against the sand on the ground. She'd be lying to herself if she said she didn't expect it, and she was now even more upset than before.

This was not good. She could feel the heat of the sand travel through her shoes and into her feet, and the hot air burned the inside of her lungs, pretty soon, she'd pass out and faceplant onto the boiling sand, which could give her serious burns.

She looked over at Tabitha and Aminah, who were whispering into each other's ears.

"You got it, Aminah?" Tabitha asked her.

"How is it supposed to stay on her back, though?" Aminah asked.

"Remember how you flew that plane behind the baseball?" Tabitha explained "It's sorta like that, the moving water moved around the ball, but couldnt go fast enough to completely cover the rear of the ball, leaving a little air bubble for the plane to settle into."

"But this time, it's with air instead of water?" Aminah asked.

"Exactly!" Tabitha confirmed "Can we get this going now? I don't want my shirt to go to waste."

"Let's do it." Aminah said.

With that, Tabitha and Aminah took off their shirts, Aminah closed one between her hands, and it turned to paper. She rolled up the newly-formed a-3 sheet and turned it into...a glass bottle? Lucy had no idea what these two were up to, but she hoped they could do something she couldn't.

Aminah gave the bottle over to Tabitha, who threw it at Diana, it hit the floor next to her and shattered into dozens of tiny pieces, which were picked up by the gust of wind from Diana's ability and scattered around the landscape.

"Are these two idiots?" Diana asked herself "now they can't move around with as much confidence because of the broken glass that'll easily melt through their shoes!"

The shirtless Aminah then took Tabitha's shirt, and turned it into paper again, then she rolled it up into what looked like a megaphone. Tabitha buried her hand into her pocket and grabbed Aminah's arm. Suddenly the two were gone from Diana's view.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!" she heard a deafening scream coming from her left, followed by a swift pain in the side of her face, moments later, she lost consciousness.

Lucy had seen it all. Tabitha had somehow teleported with Aminah directly next to Diana and taken the megaphone to stun Diana, Aminah then punched her in the face. Diana had no time to react or to change the sound of the punch. A swift victory.

Suddenly, the ground had returned to normal temperature, and the air was now breathable again.

All three girls were panting heavily and sweating like crazy. All three could use a well deserved shower.

"LuLu!" Tabitha screamed "Are you okay!?"

Lucy looked up from her shirt on the floor to see Tabitha and Aminah running at her, megaphone no longer in hand.

Lucy tried to respond, but she couldn't. Something was stopping her. It was almost as if she didn't feel like she should be allowed to respond, at least not to someone like Tabitha.

"We did it!" Tabitha kneeled down in front of her, sweating all over "Did you get hurt?"

Tabitha's question was innocent enough, but there was no way she could be aware of the impact that it had on Lucy's mental state. She was helpless, she couldn't help her friends, she couldn't defend them, she couldn't even defend herself if not through sheer luck and reflexes. While Tabitha and Aminah were out there risking their abilities in a battle of wits and ingenuity, Lucy stood shirtless batting her shirt at the ground in a desperate attempt to be of use.

"...LuLu...?" Aminah looked concerned "...What's wrong?"

Lucy could feel herself begin to whimper quietly at her own uselessness.

"I know it's hot, but eyeballs aren't meant to sweat…" Aminah joked unhelpfully.

"Cut it out! LuLu needs our help." Tabitha crawled around behind Lucy and began her pinching routine "Cry not, mine friend, for I am here to ease thine troubles!"

Tabitha tried to lighten the mood, but it didn't help. It was at this point that Lucy broke down into tears, causing Tabitha to pull back.

"LuLu, what's wrong!?" Aminah asked.

"I...I can't!" she spoke through her sobs "Can't…!"

"...?" Aminah and Tabitha looked at each other in confusion.

"I'm...not…" Lucy continued, her cries intensifying "...useful…"

She had said it, the thoughts that plagued the back of her mind had entered the ether to be acknowledged by those closest to her. All Lucy wanted right now was to be needed.

"Oh, come on now," Tabitha said in a low, but tender and inviting voice "you know that's not true."

"*sniff*...but...I just…" Lucy's crying decreased in intensity slightly "just…sat here…*sniff*"

It was true, Lucy did nothing while her friends fought, she stood there and became unimportant like an urn blended into a wall. Tabitha moved around to her front and looked her dead in the face.

"Look at me." she demanded.

Lucy's shoulders shook as she cried.

"I said look at me!" Tabitha put her hands on Lucy's shoulders to stabilize them "Look at me." her voice was shakier than before

Lucy sniffled and raised her gaze to see into Tabitha's determined face. Except, her face wasn't determined. In fact, she couldn't even see her eyes, Tabitha was staring at Lucy's knees or the ground. Tabitha's shoulders began to vibrate and her grip on Lucy tightened.

"Don't…" Tabitha said, almost a whisper "Don't even think about thinking that."

Aminah was extremely confused.

"If...i-if you aren't here…" Tabitha began "w-who's cheeks…can I pinch?"

"..." Lucy was too shocked to continue crying.

"If you aren't here…" she continued, slightly louder "who's gonna cry over blood tests?"

"..." Lucy said nothing, incapable of forming words.

"If you aren't here…" Tabitha said "Who's gonna let me be strong?"

Tabitha needed Lucy. Without Lucy, Tabitha could not be herself. She needed someone to be there, someone to want to help. She'd been doing it for so long, it only felt natural to come and wake her up in the mornings when she forgot to set her alarm, it only felt natural to console her after a jumpscare in an internet video, it only felt natural to make sure there were no balloons near them.

It only felt natural to want to protect Lucy. That is what Tabitha wants.

"...T-" Lucy started to speak.

Before she could even utter a syllable, Tabitha had buried her face into Lucy's chest and wrapped her arms around her waist in a tight hug. Even though it was over 40 degrees celsius in the hot desert, Tabitha quivered like she was in a Canadian winter.

"I...need you…" Lucy could make out Tabitha's speech despite it being muffled by her own body and Tabitha's sobs "I need to…"

"..." Aminah was beginning to understand as well.

"I need to need you!" Tabitha screamed into Lucy's chest and further tightened her grip "...or...or else!"

Or else Tabitha couldn't be herself. Aminah initially was flabbergasted at seeing her two best friends break down in tears so suddenly. Though she could somewhat comprehend that Lucy was upset at herself for being incapable of helping, she had no idea as to why Tabitha, the most headstrong member of their friend group, would lose her composure so quickly.

But in hindsight, she'd seen the clues all along, all from the very beginning when Aminah joined their class at the beginning of highschool. Lucy was shy, when she and Aminah met, Lucy was incapable of starting a proper conversation, it was always Tabitha who kickstarted it by complaining about something or making a joke. Lucy would never walk directly next to her, always slightly behind. Aminah knew nothing of Tabitha before she and Lucy became friends, but every time they spoke together and every time she pinched Lucy's cheeks, a sparkle entered her eyes that reminded her of the pride that a mother takes when looking at her newborn child.

Just as Lucy needed Tabitha to be confident in herself, Tabitha needed Lucy to accomplish the same. This reaction was fear. Fear that Lucy would mature beyond needing her any longer.

She knew it was inevitable, but Tabitha couldn't accept it quite yet. That hug was a plea, that hug was Tabitha begging Lucy to stay with her until she could accept that her friend was becoming an adult.

Aminah could not share in the emotions of the two, but seeing them both cry their eyes out for different yet surprisingly similar reasons made Aminah feel like she had to do something. Aminah joined into the hug. All three girls, topless, sweaty, tired, and teary, were engaged in a group hug in the middle of the desert.

All the while, a doorway towards the future was calling them to itself.


End file.
